ESSAYS  IN  THE  STUDY 
OF  SIENESE  PAINTING 


Matteo   di   GiovANJsri  :    MADOisrisrA. 


ESSAYS   IN  THE  STUDY   OF 
SIENESE  PAINTING 


BY 

BERNARD  BERENSON 


1    J  j>>. >,'»,»» »' 


-.Ai.Ji-vKr^n/ 


NEW  YORK 

FREDERIC  FAIRCHILD  SHERMAN 

MCMXVIII 


Copyright,  1918,  by 
Frederic  Fairchild  Sherman 


PREFACE 

There  was  a  time  when  the  ardour  of  mere  discovery 
made  me  nearly  as  happy  at  the  sight  of  a  new  Sano  di 
^Pietro  as  of  a  new  Piero  della  Francesca.  Yet  even 
then,  it  did  not  seem  worth  while  to  publish  pictures  like 
those  of  the  good  Sano  and  his  peers,  for,  although 
excellent  in  their  way,  and  exciting  to  come  across  for 
the  first  time  in  some  out-of-the-way  little  hill  town, 
such  paintings  tend  to  resemble  the  standardized  prod- 
ucts of  a  mint  rather  than  the  spontaneous  creations 
of  a  changeful  human  spirit. 

My  intention  throughout  all  my  work  has  been,  as  a 
rule,  to  publish  only  such  pictures  as  went  rather  to 
constitute  an  artistic  personality  hitherto  un-integrated, 
or  to  extend,  by  showing  it  in  a  new  phase,  a  personality 
already  known. 

And  of  such  a  nature  are  the  papers  that  appear  in 
this  volume ;  only  that  never  before,  as  in  these  essays, 
unless  it  be  in  my  recent  book  on  "Venetian  Painting  in 
America,"  and  in  my  third  series  of  "Study  and  Criti- 
cism of  Italian  Art/'  have  I  applied  with  such  scrupu- 
lousness the  test  of  chronology,  and  never  have  I  thrown 
my  nets  so  wide  or  been  so  painstaking  in  gathering  up 
the  facts  that  go  towards  determining  a  date. 

In  the  article  on  "Ugolino  Lorenzetti,"  I  started  out 
with  an  altarpiece  regarding  which  we  had  no  infor- 


mation  whatever.  I  venture  to  hope  that  I  have  suc- 
ceeded not  only  in  finding  out  just  when  it  was  de- 
signed but  what  are  its  exact  affinities  with  the  rest  of 
Sienese  Painting.  Compared  with  that  effort,  the  task 
of  gathering  up  other  works  that  can  be  demonstrated 
to  be  by  the  same  hand,  and  to  integrate  them  into  an 
artistic  personality,  is  relatively  easy  and  simple.  I 
beg  the  student,  even  when  not  perfectly  convinced  by 
my  arguments,  to  believe  in  my  conclusions.  Not  that 
I  have  failed  to  do  my  best,  but  that  the  tedium  would 
have  been  intolerable  if  I  had  stated  all  that  could  be 
said.  And  besides,  our  studies  are  not  the  fittest  sub- 
ject for  the  dialectical  method.  Argument  in  our  field 
can  never  be  conclusive :  it  can  only  be  directive. 

The  same  reasons  have  prevented  my  putting  down 
more  than  a  part  of  the  arguments  I  could  adduce  in 
proof  that  the  Marriage  Salver  recently  acquired  by 
the  Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  was  not  by  Boccatis 
of  Camerino  but  by  a  close  follower  of  Cossa  and  Tura. 
The  problem  presented  is,  however,  of  such  relative 
simplicity  that  one  is  almost  ashamed  to  take  it  so  seri- 
ously. And  yet  it  needs  to  be  so  taken,  if  at  this  date  ac- 
credited adepts  of  our  profession  can  still  make  such 
blunders.  Evidently  some  people  still  have  to  be  con- 
vinced that  even  for  an  attribution  so  obvious  as  of  this 
Marriage  Salver,  it  is  necessary  to  have  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  all  the  schools  of  Italy.  I  must  add  that 
if  I  include  this  paper  on  a  Ferrarese  painting  in  a 
book  on  Sienese  masters,  it  is,  as  the  reader  will  see, 
because  the  discussion  turns  on  Matteo  di  Giovanni, 
their  chief  during  the  advanced  Quattrocento,  oblig- 

vi 


ing  me  to  characterize  him  and  to  define  his  relations 
to  his  contemporaries  in  a  way  in  which  I,  at  least, 
have  never  done  before. 

The  essay  on  Matteo  and  Cozzarelli  is  intended  to 
show  what  progress  has  been  made  in  distinguishing 
closely  between  artists  so  kindred  that  as  recently  as 
ten  years  ago  their  works  were  still  jumbled  together 
in  almost  unsuspected  confusion. 

The  shorter  papers  are  slight  enough,  yet  not  with- 
out their  use.  The  one  on  Cola  Petruccioli  is  to  in- 
troduce a  hitherto  all  but  unknown  little  master  who 
plays  his  own  little  pipe  to  charm  us  with.  The  one 
on  Lippo  Vanni  extends  our  acquaintance  with  that 
painter,  who,  until  a  little  while  ago,  was  a  mere  name. 
The  brief  notice  on  the  Girolamo  da  Cremona  at 
Havre  increases  our  acquaintance  with  that  fascinat- 
ing and  poignant  illuminator  by  adding  a  work  of  un- 
expected type  and  character  to  the  still  very  scanty 
number  of  his  panel  paintings. 

These  papers,  imperfect  as  they  are,  will,  I  trust,  per- 
suade the  attentive  reader  that  our  studies,  if  properly 
pursued,  make  demands  upon  all  of  a  man's  mental 
energies,  and  furnish  a  discipline  inferior  to  few. 
They  require  the  first-hand  observation  of  the  natural- 
ist, the  analysis  of  the  psychologist  and  the  skill  in 
weighing  and  interpreting  evidence  necessary  to  the 
historian. 

A  generation  ago,  when  a  beginner,  I  enjoyed  the 
privilege  of  being  guided  through  the  Borghese  Gal- 

vii 


lery  by  a  famous  connoisseur.  Before  the  Pieta  now 
ascribed  to  Ortolano  I  fell  into  raptures  over  the  tragic 
pathos  of  the  design.  My  mentor,  who  perhaps  had 
had  his  fill  of  emotion  in  the  work  of  art,  or  perchance 
was  growing  impatient  of  my  neophytic  aphasia,  cut  me 
short  with:  ^^Yes,  yes,  but  please  observe  the  little  peb- 
bles in  the  foreground.  They  are  highly  characteristic 
of  the  artist."  ^'Observe  the  little  pebbles"  has  become 
among  my  intimates  a  phrase  for  all  the  detailed,  at 
times  almost  ludicrously  minute,  comparisons  upon 
which  so  large  a  part  of  activities  like  mine  are  spent. 
It  does  not  weary  me,  for  I  have  the  fun  of  the  ad- 
venture, but  the  reader,  who  has  only  to  check  my  state- 
ments with  no  reward  but  instruction  (or,  if  malicieux, 
to  find  me  at  fault) ,  may  soon  have  enough  of  my  argu- 
ments. To  reconcile  him,  and  to  please  the  public,  I 
have  inserted  into  every  volume  of  essays  one  which 
anybody  can  follow  without  keeping  his  eyes  fixed  on 
the  "little  pebbles."  Here,  it  is  a  discussion  of  the  Re- 
lations between  Sienese  Art  and  the  Arts  of  the  Far 
East.  I  was  prevented  from  completing  it  in  time  for 
this  volume,  and  much  as  I  regret  it  in  one  way,  in 
another  I  am  not  altogether  sorry.  I  may  now  find  the 
leisure  to  treat  the  subject  more  fully  and  more  gen- 
erally than  I  could  have  in  the  few  pages  dedicated  to 
it  here.  But  I  confess  its  absence  leaves  the  volume 
a  more  purely  professional  and  technical  one  than  I 
should  have  wished. 

As  becomes  a  man  who  has  behind  him  thirty  years 
of  work  in  the  same  limited  field,  I  have  not  hesitated 

viii 


f  ^ 


to  fall  into  reminiscences,  to  compare  the  present  with 
the  past,  and  to  talk  not  only  of  what  has  been  acquired 
but  to  point  out  what  improvements  have  been  made 
in  method.  If  our  efforts,  so  often  crowned  with  suc- 
cess, are  seldom  favoured  with  recognition,  the  fault  is 
due  to  the  less  noble  sides  of  our  poor  human  nature,  to 
envy,  jealousy  and  spite.  If  art  scholars,  instead  of 
never  failing  to  proclaim  from  their  pages  their  differ- 
ences, often  quite  insignificant,  took  as  much  pains  to 
announce  how  much  they  agree  on  so  many  important 
and  vital  points,  the  tribute  of  respect  meted  out  to 
their  common  labours  would  be  of  a  less  grudging  and 
contemptuous  nature.  To  younger  colleagues  the 
words  of  the  Chinese  sage  We-pu-fi  are  recommended : 
"When  you  stand  on  another  man's  shoulders,  try  not 
to  spit  on  his  head." 

B.  Berenson. 
Settignano,  October,  1917. 


IX 


m 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface v 

List  of  Illustrations xiii 

I     Ugolino  Lorenzetti I 

II     Two  Further  Pictures  by  Lippo  Vanni 37 

III  A  Sienese  Little  Master  in  New  York  and  Elsewhere: 

Cola  di  Petruccioli 43 

IV  A  Cassone-Front  at  Le  Havre  by  Girolamo  da  Cremona  52 

V     A  Ferrarese  Marriage  Salver  in  the  Boston  Museum  of 

Fine  Arts 57 

VI     Guidoccio  Cozzarelli  and  Matteo  di  Giovanni    .      .      .81 

General   Index 97 

Index  of  Places 107 


« 


t: 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Matteo  di  Giovanni  :     Madonna.     Percena  .     .      .  Frontispiece 

FACING 
FACE 

1.  Ugolino  Lorenzetti:    Nativity  of  Our  Lord.    Fogg 

Museum,  Cambridge,  U.  S.  A.       .......  I 

2.  Duccio:     Nativity.    Berlin 5 

3.  Bernardo  Daddi;    Nativity.    Dijon  .     .     ...     .     ...    ...  7 

4.  Pietro  Lorenzetti:    Madonna  Enthroned.    Cortona  12 

5.  Ugolino  Lorenzetti:     Detail  from  Nativity.    Fogg 

Museum,  Cambridge,  U.  S.  A 13 

5a.  Ugolino  Lorenzetti  :    Detail  from  Nativity.    Fogg 

Museum,  Cambridge,  U.  S.  A 13 

6.  Ugolino     Lorenzetti:    Polyptych — Madonna     and 

Saints.     S.  Croce,  Florence 15 

7.  Ugolino     Lorenzetti:     Triptych — Madonna     and 

Saints.    Fogliano 15 

7a.  Ugolino  Lorenzetti:    Triptych  (Saint  Golgano  at 

Left  of  the  Madonna).     Fogliano 14 

7b.  Ugolino  Lorenzetti:    Triptych  (Saint  Ansano  at 

Right  of  the  Madonna).    Fogliano     .....     14 

8.  Ugolino     Lorenzetti:     Polyptych — ^IVIadonna     and 

Saints.     San  Gimignano 16 

9.  Ambrogio        Lorenzetti:        Madonna.      Roccalbegna 

(Grosseto) 23 

ID.  Ugolino   Lorenzetti:    The  Crucifixion.     Collection 

of  Mr.  B.  Berenson,  Settignano 25 

11.  Ugolino  Lorenzetti:    The  Crucifixion.    The  Louvre, 

Paris        24 

12.  Ugolino     Lorenzetti:     Tabernacle.     Collection     of 

Mrs.  J.  L.  Gardner,  Boston,  U.  S.  A .     26 

13.  Pietro  Lorenzetti:     Madonna.     Grosseto    ....     27 

xiii 


FACING 
FACE 


14.  Ugolino  Lorenzetti:    Four  Saints.    Pisa  ....     28 

15.  Ugolino    Lorenzetti:    Annunciation    and    Saints. 

The  J.  G.  Johnson  Collection,  Philadelphia,  U.  S.  A.     .     29 

16.  Lippo    Vanni:    Triptych.     Collection   of    Mr.    Henry 

Walters,  Baltimore,  U.  S.  A 38 

17.  Lippo  Vanni:    Madonna.    Perugia 39 

18.  Lippo  Vanni:    Triptych.    SS.  Domenico  e  Sisto,  Rome    40 

19.  Lippo  Vanni:    Triptych.    Vatican  Gallery,  Rome  .     .     41 

20.  Cola  di   Petruccioli:    Triptych.    Metropolitan   Mu- 

seum, New  York,  U.  S.  A 44 

21.  Cola  di  Petruccioli:    Triptych.    Collection  of  Mr. 

Charles  Loeser,  Florence 45 

22.  Fei:     Madonna.     S.  Domenico,  Siena 44 

23.  Cola  di  Petruccioli:    Madonna  and  Saints.    Liech- 

tenstein Collection,  Vienna 45 

24.  Cola  di   Petruccioli:    Assumption   of  the  Virgin. 

Bettona 46 

25.  Cola  di  Petruccioli:    Diptych.    The  Crucifixion. 

Town  Library,  Spello 47 

25a.  Cola  di  Petruccioli:    Diptych.    Coronation  of  the 

Virgin.    Town  Library,  Spello 46 

26.  Cola  di  Petruccioli:    Nativity,  and  Annunciation. 

S.  Giovenale,  Orvieto 49 

27.  GiROLAMo  DA  Cremona:    The  Rape  of  Helen.    Le 

Havre $2 

28.  GiROLAMo    DA    Cremona:     Epiphany.    Cathedral    Li- 

brary, Siena 54 

29.  GiROLAMo  DA  Cremona:    Virgin  Martyrs.    Cathedral 

Library,  Siena 54 

30.  Close   Follower   of   Cossa:    Obverse   of   Marriage 

Salver    Representing    Solomon    and   the    Queen 

OF  Sheba.     Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston,  U.  S.  A.      .     57 

31.  Close    Follower   of    Cossa:     Reverse    of    Marriage 

Salver    Representing    Putto    with    Cornucopia. 
Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston,  U.  S.  A 60 

32.  Matteo  di  Giovanni:    Massacre  of  the  Innocents. 

S.  Agostino,  Siena 66 

33.  Tura:    Annunciation.    Cathedral,  Ferrara  ....  66 

xiv 


FACING 
PAGE 


34.  Matteo   di    Giovanni:     St.    Jerome.    Fogg   Museum, 

Cambridge.   U.   S.  A. 66 

35.  Neroccio:     Part  of  Predella  with  Episode  from  the 

Legend  of  St.  Benedict.     Uffizi,  Florence  ....     68 

36.  BoccATis:     PoLYPTYCH.     Belforte 72 

37.  BoccATis:    Madonna.    Former  Schwartz  Collection,  Vi- 

enna    73 

38.  BoccATis:    Marriage  of  the  Blessed  Virgin.    Collec- 

tion of  Mr.  B.  Berenson,  Settignano 74 

39.  Cossa:     a  Race.     Part  of  a  Fresco  in  Schifanoia  Palace, 

Ferrara 78 

40.  Cossa:    Predella.    Vatican,  Rome 78 

41.  Cossa  Studio:    Triumph  of  Venus.    Part  of  a  Fresco 

in  Schifanoia  Palace,  Ferrara 78 

42.  Cossa:    Predella.    Vatican,  Rome 78 

43.  Cossa:     Predella.    Vatican,  Rome      ......  78 

44.  Cossa:    The  Baptist.     Brera,  Milan 79 

45.  Close    Follower   of    Tura    and   Cossa:    A   Bishop. 

Collection  of  late  Theo.  M.  Davis,  Newport,  U.  S.  A.     .     79 

46.  Cossa   Studio:    The   Triumphal   Car  of   Minerva. 

Part  of  a  Fresco  in  Schifanoia  Palace,  Ferrara      ...     79 

47.  Cossa   Studio:    Putti  Attending  the  Triumph  of 

Apollo.     Part  of   a  Fresco  in  the   Schifanoia   Palace, 
Ferrara 79 

48.  Tura:    Virgin  Annunciate.    National  Gallery,  Lon- 

don      80 

49.  Cozzarelli:     Madonna    and    Angels.     Collection    of 

Mr.  Henry  Walters,  Baltimore,  U.  S.  A 85 

50.  Cozzarelli:     Madonna  and  Saints.     Paganico  (Gros- 

seto)         88 

51.  Cozzarelli:    The  Baptism.    St.  Bernardino,  Sinalunga  88 

52.  Cozzarelli:    Madonna  and  Angels.     Collection  of  the 

late  George  A.  Heam,  New  York,  U.  S.  A 89 

53.  Matteo  di  Giovanni  :    Madonna,  Saints  and  Angels. 

Contrada  della  Selva,  Siena 89 

54.  Cozzarelli:     Nativity.    At  Paris  dealer's  in  19 10  .     .     89 

55.  Cozzarelli:    St.  Barbara.    Vatican  Gallery,  Rome      .     90 

XV 


PACING 
PAGE 


56.  CozzARELLi:     Camilla  and  Her  Companions  in  Bat- 

tle  WITH    i^^NEAS.     The    J.    G.    Johnson    Collection, 
Philadelphia,  U.  S.  A 91 

57.  Cozzarelli:    Roman  Heroines  swimming  the  Tiber. 

Metropolitan  Museum,  New  York,  U.  S.  A.      .      .      .     92 

58.  Cozzarelli:    The  Return  of  Ulysses.     Cluny  Mu- 

seum, Paris 92 

59.  Cozzarelli:    Miracle   of   the   Madonna.    Archives, 

Siena 93 

60.  Cozzarelli:     Story  of  Lucretia.     Formerly  at  Messrs. 

Trotti  and  Co.,  Paris 93 


XVI 


1 


I    GOLINO   LOKI  \/l  \  \IIVITY   OF   OUR  LORD 

Fogg  Museum,   Cambridge,    U.   S.  A. 


ESSAYS  IN  THE  STUDY  OF 
SIENESE  PAINTING 

UGOLINO  LORENZETTI 

THE  Fogg  Museum  of  Harvard  University  has 
recently  acquired  a  large  Trecento  picture  which 
represents  the  Nativity  of  Our  Lord  (Figure  i).  As 
a  work  of  art,  it  appeals  to  the  initiated  for  qualities 
which  make  it  a  masterpiece  of  Medieval  Siena.  As  a 
problem  in  connoisseurship,  it  is  interesting  enough  to 
stimulate  the  student  to  the  exercise  of  all  his  faculties. 
To  begin  with,  we  must  make  acquaintance  with  the 
aspect,  and  character  of  the  painting.  We  shall  then 
examine  and  cross-examine  the  evidence  it  offers  of  its 
own  origin  and  kinship.  After  which,  it  will  be  in 
order  to  look  abroad  for  other  works  by  the  same  hand. 
If  we  find  a  sufficient  number,  we  shall  try  to  recon- 
struct the  artistic  personality  of  their  author,  and  to 
determine  how  he  was  related  to  his  contemporaries. 

I 

Before  a  cave,  half  masked  by  a  Gothic  pavilion, 
sits  the  stately  and  placid  Mother  of  Our  Lord, 
with  wrists  crossed  over  her  lap.  She  receives  the 
homage  of  an  eager  shepherd  who  falls  at  her  feet. 


Doing  this,  he  blocks  the  entrance  to  the  right,  so  that 
of  his  companion  we  see  only  a  gesticulating  hand. 
Opposite  sits  Joseph  thinking  his  own  thoughts.  Be- 
tween them  stand  the  basin  and  ewer  for  washing  the 
Holy  Child,  and  the  Holy  Child  Himself  Jies  swaddled 
in  the  manger  with  the  pious  ox  and  ass  putting  their 
sentimental  heads  together  over  Him.  Up  above,  un- 
der the  low  ceilings  of  the  toy  edifice,  in  the  midst  of 
cherubim  and  lovely  angels  in  adoration,  the  Eternal 
appears  sending  down  His  Spirit,  the  Dove,  upon  the 
Blessed  Infant. 

Such  in  brief  is  what  is  presented  to  our  eyes.  It  is 
no  ordinary  treatment  of  the  subject.  Theology  and 
ritual  must  have  dictated  some  of  it — the  Theophany 
undoubtedly.  But  what  of  the  Holy  Virgin?  She 
does  not  lie  as  usual  reclining  on  a  couch  a  little  to  one 
side  of  the  action,  which,  in  early  treatments  of  the 
Nativity,  always  centers  firmly  about  the  Child,  but 
sits  almost  enthroned  as  the  most  prominent  figure  of 
the  drama.  The  shepherd  gazes  at  her  with  a  yearning 
ardour  most  unusual,  as  if  it  were  her  alone  he  had  come 
to  worship ;  and  for  the  nonce,  neither  of  them  seems  to 
think  of  turning  to  the  Babe.  It  is  hard  to  account  for 
a  design  so  out  of  the  common  run,  unless  it  was  mere 
Mariolatry,  the  tide  of  which,  after  more  than  a  cen- 
tury of  Franciscan  propaganda,  was  then  nearly  full. 
For  my  part,  I  can  recall  nothing  exactly  like  it  in  the 
Italian  painting  of  the  time.  And  unique  too,  so  far 
as  I  can  remember,  is  this  manifestation  of  the  Eternal 
with  His  spirit,  instead  of  the  star,  descending  upon  the 
Child.    Was  this  too  inspired  by  the  Franciscan  pas- 


sion  for  realizing  Christianity  in  the  simplest  human 
terms,  and  with  human  shapes?  Or  was  the  whole 
scene  inspired  by  the  fresh  recollection  of  some  Christ- 
mas miracle  play  which  the  painter  had  just  witnessed? 
This  would  h^elp  to  explain  the  action  of  the  shepherd 
and  the  flimsiness  of  the  architecture,  but  scarcely  to 
account  for  the  Theophany,  seeing  how  unlikely  it  is 
that  at  so  early  a  date  they  had  the  means  for  staging  it. 
And  what  about  the  dramatic  hand,  all  that  is  visible  of 
the  other  shepherd?  So  unprecedented  and  unex- 
pected is  such  an  innovation  that  I  am  led  to  ask 
whether  this  ^^Nativity"  did  not  form  the  central  part  of 
a  triptych  like  Pietro  Lorenzetti's  ^'Birth  of  the  Vir- 
gin," wherein  flanking  panels  continued  the  scene,  so 
that  the  figure  owning  the  hand  appeared  on  the  right. 
Even  this  would  be  original  enough. 

We  ask  questions  like  these  not  to  answer  them — a 
task  which  must  be  left  to  the  special  student  of  Medie- 
val theology,  thought,  and  life, — but  to  draw  attention 
to  what  is  unusual  in  the  picture  regarded  as  illustra-' 
tion.  Leaving  all  that  now  and  turning  to  what  in  my 
vocabulary  I  have  called  ^'Decoration,"  we  cannot  ex- 
pect that  side  of  the  work  to  be  so  full  of  peculiarities, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  decoration  offers  much  less 
scope  for  originality.  In  decoration,  quality  is  nearly 
everything,  and  individuality  nearly  nothing,  counting 
seldom,  indeed,  for  more  than  mere  novelty, — an  ele- 
ment in  itself  seductive  and  alluring,  but  of  fugitive 
and  evanescent  effect.  Bearing  in  mind  that  this  "Na- 
tivity" is  Sienese,  and,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  of  a 
date  not  later  than  1340  and  perhaps  earlier,  there  are 

3 


three  elements  only  in  its  quality  which  may  be  counted 
as  individual  and  characteristic  of  its  author. 

In  the  first  place,  the  tonality  is  neither  the  silvery 
one  of  Duccio  nor  the  golden  one  of  Simone  Martini, 
and  still  less  is  it  the  opaque  greyish  greenish  one  of  the 
followers  who  hovered  between  these  two  chiefs  of  the 
school.  The  tonality  of  our  ^'Nativity"  is  a  thing  apart, 
a  work  of  rich  and  satisfying  colouring,  strong  and  soft, 
a  sort  of  orange  brown  out  of  which  flash  and  sparkle 
beautiful  blues  and  grape  purples. 

In  the  next  place,  I  find  that  the  Madonna  is  more 
massive,  more  monumental,  more  compact  than  Sienese 
works  of  that  time  were  wont  to  be.  Her  drapery  is 
simpler  and  more  severe.  I  should  never  mistake  her 
for  a  Florentine  figure,  and  yet  she  almost  has  the  tac- 
tile values  of  one. 

Finally,  the  arabesque  of  ductile  and  fluent  lines 
formed  by  the  contours  and  draperies  of  the  shepherd 
is  rare  in  art  so  early.  Contrasting  with  the  immobile 
gravity  of  the  Virgin,  it  anticipates  the  ecstatic  and 
swift  style  of  a  romantic  painter  of  two  whole  genera- 
tions later,  Lorenzo  Monaco. 

Apart,  however,  from  any  question  of  originality, 
this  work  for  its  qualities  of  composition,  drawing, 
modelling  and  technique,  deserves  a  place  with  the 
most  convincing,  most  impressive,  and  most  sumptuous 
athievements  of  Sienese  Painting. 

II 

We  are  now  sufl5ciently  acquainted  with  the  picture 
to  begin  our  inquiries  regarding  its  origin  and  kinship. 

4 


-!-,•* •     •    • 


,-  «  ,    »     * 


2.     Duccio:  Nativity 
Berlin 


A  process  of  elimination  so  rapid  as  to  be  almost  as 
unconscious  as  the  spokes  of  a  swiftly  turning  wheel  are 
indistinguishable,  brings  us  in  an  instant  to  Siena  as  the 
school,  and  the  Fourteenth  century  as  the  period,  to 
which  this  work  belongs.  It  takes  scarcely  longer  to 
arrive  at  the  probability  that  the  period  is  the  first 
rather  than  the  second  half  of  that  century;  but  not  so 
easily  answered  is  the  question  of  the  painter's  exact 
affinities.  As  for  his  name,  we  shall  have  to  confess 
ourselves  baffled  and  acknowledge  that  we  do  not 
know  it. 

The  student  to  whom  this  essay  is  addressed  need  not 
have  its  Trecento  Sienese  origin  proved  to  him,  for  that 
will  be  as  manifest  to  him  as  to  myself.  He  may,  how- 
ever, welcome  discussion  of  the  less  obvious  questions 
of  close  affinity,  precise  authorship,  and  exact  date. 

Although  certain  features  of  the  design  recall  Duc- 
cio  and  others  Lorenzo  Monaco,  in  general  character  it 
approaches  the  Lorenzetti.  Were  the  author  an  exact 
contemporary  of  Duccio,  he  would  scarcely  anticipate 
Lorenzo  Monaco  to  the  degree  that  he  does  in  the 
shepherd.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  worked  as  late  as 
the  last  named  artist,  he  surely  would  not  cling  so  close 
to  Duccio  as  he  does  in  the  opening  of  the  cave,  in  the 
crossing  of  the  Blessed  Virgin's  wrists,  and  in  Joseph's 
action  and  draping  which  vividly  recall  the  latter's 
small  ''Nativity"  (Figure  2),  now  at  Berlin  but  for- 
merly part  of  his  great  Maestas  of  1308-13 11.  The 
angels,  however,  and  the  cherubim,  as  well  as  the 
Eternal,  are  so  like  to  the  Lorenzetti,  as  are  also  the 
floreated  capitals  and  leafy  cornices  of  the  building, 

5 


that  we  are  tempted  to  ask  what  prevents  us  from 
attributing  this  work,  which  belongs  to  a  period  be- 
tween Duccio  and  Lorenzo  Monaco,  to  one  or  the  other 
of  the  two  most  formative  artists  of  that  intervening 
period,  to  one  or  the  other  of  the  Lorenzetti. 

We  answer  that  we  know  no  designs  by  Pietro  or  Am- 
brogio  Lorenzetti  which  are  at  once  so  placid  and  so 
vehement,  in  which  the  pose  and  modelling  of  a  figure 
are  so  compact  and  full  of  inner  substance  as  in  the 
Madonna  here;  and  furthermore  that  although  the 
types  of  the  winged  presences  bear  a  strong  resem- 
blance to  those  of  the  Lorenzetti,  they  yet  are  not  near 
enough  for  identity.  To  all  of  which  it  will  be  replied 
that  this  panel  might  nevertheless  have  been  painted 
earlier  than  any  of  their  other  known  works.  The 
rejoinder  requires  us  to  ascertain,  if  possible,  exactly 
when  the  "Nativity"  was  painted. 

It  is  no  easy  task  that  at  this  point  we  are  called  upon 
to  undertake,  for  as  yet  the  study  of  Sienese  art  has  been 
pursued  too  short  a  time,  and  by  too  few  students,  to 
have  gone  farther  than  the  mapping  out  of  the  main 
outlines,  and  distributing  the  known  materials  more  or 
less  coherently  among  the  various  dominions  and  dis- 
tricts. A  detailed  chronology  has  scarcely  been  at- 
tempted and  accurate  results  are  few.  In  the  pres- 
ence of  a  painting  like  the  one  before  us  we  feel  the 
more  baffled  as,  owing  no  doubt  to  some  mere  accident, 
this  particular  subject  is  so  seldom  represented  among 
the  Sienese  works  that  have  come  down  from  the  first 
half  of  the  Trecento  that  obvious  terms  of  comparison 
are  almost  wanting. 

6 


Q 
Q 

< 


We  must  begin  with  the  representation  and  try  to 
ascertain  when  it  first  occurred  to  an  artist  designing  a 
"Nativity"  to  move  the  Blessed  Virgin  off  her  couch 
and  make  her  sit  up,  as  she  does  in  our  picture,  instead 
of  reclining,  as  we  find  her  in  Duccio  and  in  all  the 
paintings  of  Giotto  and  his  anonymous  assistants. 

As,  excepting  our  case,  I  can  recall  no  painting  of  the 
Nativity  in  Sienese  art  between  Duccio's  dating  from 
no  later  than  131 1,  and  such  works  as  the  small  panel  in 
Berlin  (No.  1094A)  and  the  fresco  at  S.  Colomba, 
both  due  to  followers  of  the  Lorenzetti  who  worked  no 
earlier  than  the  middle  of  the  century,  it  will  be  ex- 
pedient to  see  how  this  theme  was  being  handled,  dur- 
ing the  same  years,  in  the  neighbouring  Florence. 
There,  in  the  Baroncelli  Chapel  at  S.  Croce,  executed 
between  1332  and  1338,  we  find  Taddeo  Gaddi's  fresco 
wherein  the  Madonna  is  off  her  couch  and  almost  sit- 
ting up ;  Bernardo  Daddi,  Taddeo's  more  exquisite  and 
accomplished  fellow  pupil,  gives  the  subject  almost 
identical  treatment  in  a  dainty  and  fascinating  predella 
of  about  the  same  date,  which  now  forms  part  of  the 
Maciet  bequest  at  Dijon  (Figure  3) . 

If  we  bear  in  mind  that  toward  1335  Siena  was  no 
longer  ahead  of  Florence  in  invention  and  enterprise 
but  lagging  behind,^  and  if,  besides,  we  take  into  ac- 
count the  fact  that  in  the  Fogg  "Nativity"  the  Ma- 
donna is  seated  with  both  knees  bent,  instead  of  one 

1  In  that  high  achievement  of  Sienese  design,  Ugolino  di  Vieri's  tabernacle 
at  Orvieto,  begun  in  1337,  the  Madonna  in  the  scene  of  the  Nativity  is  still 
reclining.  Without  going  the  whole  length  with  Adolfo  Venturi  (Storia 
IV,  p.  940),  who  would  ascribe  the  invention  of  the  various  scenes  to 
Ambrogio  Lorenzetti,  I  agree  that  they  must  be  due  to  no  backward  artist. 


only,  as  in  the  Florentine  works,  we  shall  not  be  disin- 
clined to  assume  that  our  composition,  in  which  she  is 
farther  from  the  stereotyped  Byzantine  posture  of  re- 
clining, can  not  be  of  an  earlier  date. 

Now  let  us  see  whether  more  detailed  evidence 
strengthens  or  dissipates  this  presumption. 

It  will  be  admitted  that  architectural  features  as  well 
as  household  vessels  and  utensils,  and  indeed  all  things 
that  have  shape  and  pattern,  such  as  costumes,  stuffs, 
ornaments,  etc,  etc.,  are  constantly  changing,  and  that 
in  the  Trecento  the  change  was  from  the  simple  to  the 
more  complicated,  from  the  round  to  the  pointed,  from 
the  massive  to  the  slender  and  from  the  sober  to  the 
more  ornate.  To  find  out  just  when  our  "Nativity" 
must  have  been  designed  it  should  suffice  to  compare  it 
in  all  these  details  with  other  works  of  established  date.^ 

But  that  is  not  easy,  owing  to  the  unfortunate  fact 
already  referred  to,  that  the  detailed  chronology  of 
Sienese  painting  has  as  yet  scarcely  been  attempted.  I 
shall  not  be  expected  to  undertake  it  here.  The  dis- 
cussion would  lengthen  out  beyond  all  proportion,  de- 
manding a  volume  or  volumes  and  not  a  paragraph. 
Nor  am  I  ready  to  enter  upon  it,  for  while  I  have  had 
the  experience  that  gives  me  a  sense  of  the  period  in 
a  master's  career  to  which  a  given  picture  belongs,  I 
have  not  carried  my  analysis  and  synthesis  far  enough 

2  It  should,  however,  be  observed  that  in  Siena  at  least  the  evolution  was 
steady  and  logical  till  toward  1350  only.  After  that — possibly  as  one  of 
the  many  consequences  of  the  Black  Death — ^began  archaism,  eclecticism,  and 
syncretism,  and  nothing  but  a  surviving  simplicity  of  purpose  and  fine 
craftsmanship,  and  a  saving  ignorance  of  chiaroscuro  and  the  oil  medium, 
prevented  the  disaster  that  overtook  Italian  painting  in  general  little  more 
than  two  centuries  later. 

8 


to  translate  this  sense  into  demonstrable  propositions. 
Too  much  must  not  be  expected. 

Beginning  with  the  architecture,  we  note  at  first 
glance  that  it  is  scenic  and  flimsy  as  never  in  Duccio,  in 
his  immediate  and  close  follower  (probably  Segna) 
who  worked  at  Massa  Maritima,  or  in  Simone  Mar- 
tini. Even  when  their  forms  are  more  ornate  they 
look  more  massive,  more  compact  and  more  perma- 
nent They  never  introduced  columns  as  slender  and 
unsubstantial  as  those  we  find  here,  although  one  might 
expect  to  see  them  among  the  twisted  ones  they  occa- 
sionally employ.  To  discover  the  like  of  ours,  we  must 
search  the  Lorenzetti,  and  there  we  find  such  an  abun- 
dance that  we  can  afford  to  cite  those  only  which,  being 
of  inscribed  or  certified  date,  and  thus  beyond  discus- 
sion, afford  us  just  the  aid  we  need  in  our  inquiry. 

To  take  them  in  chronological  order: — Ambrogio's 
panels  in  the  Florence  Academy  depicting  four  epi- 
sodes from  the  life  of  Nicholas  of  Bari,  painted  soon 
after  1332,  have  an  architecture  as  unsubstantial,  with 
columns  as  slender,  as  in  ours,  and  with  capitals  and 
bases  almost  identical.  The  same  in  his  frescoes  of 
"Government"  in  the  Sienese  town-hall  begun  in  1338, 
and  the  same  again,  although  more  ornate,  in  his  Flor- 
ence Academy  "Presentation  of  the  Infant  Jesus  in  the 
Temple"  painted  about  1342.  As  close,  if  not  closer 
to  the  columns,  capitals  and  bases  in  our  "Nativity," 
are  those  in  Pietro's  S.  Umilta  altarpiece  in  the  Flor- 
ence Academy,  the  inscription  whereof,  although  re- 
newed, is  undoubtedly  genuine  at  least  as  regards  the 
date,  which  is  1341.     And  so,  too,  with  Pietro's  "Birth 

9 


of  the  Virgin"  of  the  Sienese  Cathedral  Museum  dated 
1342.  His  last  creations, — if  I  mistake  not  their 
chronology — the  frescoes  in  the  Lower  Church  at 
Assisi  recounting  the  Passion,  are  more  florid  still  in 
architectural  forms,  and  represent  a  stage  beyond  the 
one  that  the  author  of  our  picture  shares  with  him  and 
his  brother.  On  the  other  hand,  none  of  the  examples 
quoted  is  quite  as  intimately  parallel  as  the  forms  on 
Ugolino  di  Vieri's  Tabernacle  of  1337  at  Orvieto.  The 
impression  I  derive  from  the  study  of  the  architectural 
forms  alone  inclines  me,  therefore,  to  infer  that  this  last 
is  the  latest  date  that  can  be  assigned  to  our  ^'Nativity." 
Among  the  conspicuous  objects  in  our  panel  are  the 
ewer  and  basin  for  washing  the  Holy  Child.  The 
basin,  it  will  be  observed,  is  polygonal  instead  of  cir- 
cular, as  in  Duccio  and  all  earlier  artists,  but  it  is  not 
yet  hexagonal,  as  in  Pietro  Lorenzetti's  Triptych  of 
1342,  and  in  the  gorgeous  enamel  in  the  British  Mu- 
seum which  Adolf o  Venturi  (Storia  IV,  p.  945)  rightly 
connects  with  the  studio  of  Ugolino  di  Vieri.  In  both 
instances  the  shape  is  further  than  ours  from  the  round 
one  which  prevailed  for  centuries,  and  in  Pietro  the 
sides  of  the  basin  are  decorated  with  Saracenic  floral 
patterns— one  of  their  earliest  appearances  in  Tuscan 
art.  Making  due  allowance  for  the  relative  back- 
wardness of  our  painter,  we  need  not  hesitate  to  put  the 
polygonal  unadorned  basin  somewhat  earlier  than  the 
one  in  Pietro  Lorenzetti's  Triptych  of  1342.  And  the 
ewer  is  much  less  ornamented,  less  Oriental,  and  points 
to  an  earlier  date.  We  thus  encounter  singular  agree- 
ment with  the  evidence  drawn  from  the  architecture. 

ID 


Costume,  which  so  frequently  offers  clues  to  dates, 
affords  little  assistance  here.  The  less  reason  for  neg- 
lecting it  The  brocade  of  the  dresses,  recalling  cer- 
tain Pietro  Lorenzettis  of  the  middle  period  and  an- 
ticipating Bartolo  di  Fredi,  and  the  coiffure  of  the 
angels  can  scarcely  belong  to  a  period  earlier  than  1330, 
while  the  rich  embroidery  that  edges  the  Virgin's  man- 
tle belongs  presumably  to  a  later  day,  recalling  as  it 
does  Pietro's  Uffizi  "Madonna"  of  1340,  the  Virgin  in 
Simone's  Liverpool  panel  of  1342  and  other  contem- 
porary works. 

The  conclusion  we  may  venture  to  draw  from  such 
evidence  as  we  have  been  able  to  accumulate  thus  tends 
to  confirm,  if  only  because  it  does  not  cancel,  the  im- 
mediate impression  made  by  the  Fogg  "Nativity"  of 
being  a  work  produced  between  1330  and  1340. 

If  we  accept  that  decade  as  the  one  to  which  our 
"Nativity"  belongs,  the  possibility  that  either  Pietro 
or  Ambrogio  Lorenzetti  was  its  author  is  excluded. 
Ambrogio  in  any  event  is  not  to  be  thought  of.  As  for 
Pietro,  while  I  could  wish  that  we  had  a  much  more 
secure  and  detailed  chronology  of  his  works  we  never- 
theless have  sufficient  acquaintance  with  his  career  and 
style  from  1320  on,  to  know  that  after  that  year  he 
could  not  have  designed  the  Fogg  "Nativity." 

To  exhaust  possibilities,  let  us  for  a  moment  toy  with 
the  idea  that  Pietro,  who  could  not  have  painted  this 
panel  after  1320,  did  it  before.  It  is  apposite  to  re- 
mark that  in  the  Polyptych  at  Arezzo  of  that  year  all 
of  Pietro's  forms  are  stiffer,  harder,  tighter  and  severer 

II 


than  in  ours.  Note,  too,  that  the  columns  that  occur 
there,  chiefly  in  the  frames,  are  heavier  and  sturdier, 
and  if  it  occurs  to  you  to  compare  them  with  those  in 
another  Sienese  achievement  of  the  same  year,  Simone's 
Pisan  Polyptych,  and  you  find  that  they  are  identical, 
you  may  conclude  that  these  were  no  expression  of  per- 
sonal preference  but  as  much  the  fashion  in  1320 
among  the  frame  makers  of  Siena  as  a  certain  tight 
skirt  was  in  191 2  among  dressmakers  in  Paris. 

I  suspect  that,  although  the  Arezzo  panels  are  the 
earliest  paintings  by  Pietro  of  ascertained  date,  we 
possess  several  pictures  that  are  still  earlier.  It  is  an 
inference  I  draw  from  the  fact  that  they  are  stiffer, 
severer,  and  tighter,  and  because  they  are  closer  to  Duc- 
cio.  I  will  not  dwell  on  the  Ducciesque  "Madonnas" 
at  Castiglione  d'Orcia  and  S.  Angelo  in  Colle  because 
they  are  ruined  and  not  to  our  purpose.  In  Cortona, 
however,  we  have  a  "Madonna  enthroned  with  An- 
gels" which  affords  terms  for  comparison  (Figure  4). 

Nowhere  else  in  Pietro  do  we  see  a  throne  so  severely 
carpentered  and  angels  leaning  upon  it  or  touching  it 
in  such  patent  Ducciesque  fashion.  The  strip  of  em- 
broidery under  the  Virgin's  throat  and  crossed  over  her 
breast  is  paralleled  nowhere  else  except  in  Duccio's 
Maestas  on  the  figure  of  Pilate,  before  whom  the  Jews 
are  accusing  our  Lord.  The  sparse  geometric  pattern 
which  edges  our  Lady's  mantle  is  also  found  only  in 
Sienese  paintings  of  Duccio's  most  immediate  follow- 
ing.' 

3  Only  the   simplest   geometric  patterns  with  great  spaces  between  them 
are  found  on  the  borders  of  robes  in  such  Ducciesque  works  as  the  Madonna 

12 


■>      ' 


:exzi:tti:  Madonna  Enthroned 

Cortona 


Early  in  his  career  though  it  comes,  and  to  be  dated 
as  early  as  13 15  perhaps,  the  Cortona  Madonna  is  nev- 
ertheless markedly,  unmistakably  Pietro's.  The  types, 
the  forms,  the  action  are  his :  a  Child  more  character- 
istic, ears  more  typical,  he  never  painted.  If  the  Fogg 
"Nativity,"  which,  although  much  less  like  his  other 
accepted  works,  were  his  notwithstanding,  we  should, 
to  account  for  the  difference,  have  to  put  it  back  some 
ten  years  earlier  still,  to  1305  say,  to  a  period  before 
Duccio's  Maestas:  to  make  it  contemporary  with  the 
incunabula  of  Sienese  Painting — which  is  simply 
absurd. 

No  element  of  the  Fogg  picture  is  at  once  more  free 
from  stiffness,  archaism  of  any  sort,  and  more  gracious, 
more  suave,  more  lovely,  more,  in  a  word,  like  the  most 
advanced  Trecento  art  as  practiced  by  Barna  and  Bar- 
tolo  di  Fredi  than  the  ecstatic  angels  with  their  folded 
arms,  gorgeous  robes  and  wavy,  curly  hair  (Figures  5 
and  5a).  They  anticipate  the  most  charming  fancies 
of  Francesco  di  Giorgio  and  Neroccio.  It  is  not  with- 
out interest  to  compare  them  with  the  angels  in  Pietro's 
works. 

In  the  Cortona  "Madonna"  they  show  no  advance 
upon  Duccio  and  only  a  slight  advance  in  the  Arezzo 
Polyptych  of  1320,  or  in  the  angels  in  the  spandrils  of 
the  equally  early  Triptych  in  the  Lower  Church  at 
Assisi.  It  is  only  in  works  of  after  1330,  according  to 
my  dating,  like  the  "Madonna"  at  S.  Pietro  Ovile,  or 

at  S.  Casciano  (by  Ugolino)  or  the  one  formerly  at  the  Monistero  near 
Siena  and  now  at  Mr.  D.  F.  Piatt's,  Englewood,  N.  J.  In  Duccio  himself 
these  patterns  are  even  simpler. 

13 


the  one  in  the  Academy  at  Siena  (No.  80,  photo.  And- 
erson 21 1 18),  or  the  Uffizi  "Madonna"  of  1340,  that 
we  find  angels  of  a  type  and  dress  at  all  resembling 
those  in  our  "Nativity."  To  discover  their  like  for 
feeling  and  action  we  must  go  quite  to  the  end  of  Pie- 
tro's  career,  to  the  fresco  in  the  Lower  Church  at  Assisi 
representing  the  "Resurrection."  The  nearest  in  all 
respects  is  not  to  be  found  in  Pietro,  however,  but  in  his 
close  follower  Niccolo  di  Ser  Sozzo's  well-known  min- 
iature of  the  "Assumption"  painted  in  1334. 

I  have  argued  against  Pietro  Lorenzetti's'  author- 
ship of  the  Cambridge  "Nativity"  because  it  is  the  most 
likely  to  be  proposed;  but  with  the  same  method  it 
would  be  even  easier  to  maintain  that  neither  Am- 
brogio,  nor  Simone,  nor  Lippo  Memmi  comes  into 
question.  All  of  which  will  be  more  patent  when  we 
have  made  acquaintance,  as  we  now  shall  do,  with 
other  works  by  the  same  hand. 

Ill 

To  begin  with,  I  shall  submit  to  the  attention  of 
fellow  students  the  few  pictures  which  seem  to  me 
to  be  by  the  same  author;  and  if  at  first  sight  the 
identity  does  not  seem  convincing,  it  is  because  colour 
' — an  element  so  helpful  for  recognition — is  absent  from 
the  reproductions.  Moreover,  the  eye  requires  a  cer- 
tain time  to  perceive  even  the  obvious.  After  treat- 
ing this  group,  I  shall  attempt  to  discuss  other  pictures 
possibly  but  less  evidently  by  the  same  author.  The 
effort  can  not  be  fruitless,  for  paintings  so  close  to  him 
as  to  be  seriously  claimed  for  him  must  reveal  some- 

14 


C     C    j'  c 
C   (     c^      c 


C        C  1 


H       • 


^^  *^H 


Fig.  7.     Ugolino  Lorenzetti  :  Triptych 
Fogliano 


3    '  t 


Fig.  7a.     Ugolino  Lorenzetti:  Triptych 

(Saint  Galgano  at  left  of  the  Madonna) 
Fogliano 


c  c 

«     «      f      (C     c  t 

<»     •    «  /c    c  c 

f       '     f/  c    t  c 


^ 
y 


Fig.  7b.     Ugolino  Lorenzetti:  Triptych 

(Saint  Ansano  at  right  of  the  Madonna) 
Fogliano 


e     •    «  /c    t 


thing  significant  about  his  relations  to  his  contem- 
poraries. 

It  will  be  convenient  to  group  together  three  of  these 
certain  works  because  of  the  close  connection  between 
them.  They  are,  first,  a  Polyptych  in  the  refectory  of 
S.  Croce  at  Florence  (No.  8)  ;  secondly,  another  that 
has  disappeared  from  S.  Agostino  at  S.  Gimignano,*  and 
thirdly,  a  Triptych  of  which  the  centre  is  at  Fogliano 
and  the  side  panels  in  the  Siena  Academy  (Nos.  42, 
43).  I  trust  it  may  not  be  hard  to  persuade  the  reader 
that  these  three  works  are  by  the  same  hand,  and  after 
this  it  will  be  easier  than  if  we  had  examined  each  sep- 
arately, to  prove  that  that  hand  was  the  one  which 
painted  the  Fogg  Museum  "Nativity." 

The  S.  Croce  Polyptych  consists  of  five  panels 
(Figure  6),  each  containing  under  an  arch  slightly 
pointed  a  large,  more  than  half  length  figure,  with  a 
smaller  one  in  the  gable  above  and  the  predella  below. 
The  Madonna,  with  her  mantle  tucked  under  her  right 
arm,  appears  in  the  midst  of  four  Saints,  among  whom 
we  easily  make  out  the  Baptist  and  Francis  but  must 
leave  the  two  greybeards  unnamed.  In  the  Fogliano 
Triptych  (Figures  7,  7a,  7b),  we  see  the  Blessed  Vir- 
gin, with  her  mantle  tucked  under  her  right  arm  again, 
while,  as  at  S.  Croce,  the  half  naked  Holy  Child,  wear- 
ing, as  so  often,  a  coral  charm  against  the  Evil  Eye  but, 
as  far  more  rarely,  and  perhaps  in  Siena  alone,  a  cross 
as  well,  turns  birdlike  and  restless  in  her  arms  to  the 

*  I  can  not  remember  whether  I  ever  saw  these  panels  or  whether  they 
had  already  vanished  before  my  time.  They  were  photographed  long  ago 
by  Lombardi  of  Siena  (1771,  1772)  as  of  the  school  of  Pietro  Lorenzetti 
and  I  have  always  classified  them  with  the  S.  Croce  altarpiece. 

15 


right.  In  the  side  panels  S.  Galgano,  like  another 
Mithras,  plunges  his  sword  into  a  rock,  and  S.  Ansano 
carries  the  banner,  as  patron  of  Siena.  AH  three  are 
more  than  half  length,  and  under  trefoil  arches  with 
dragons  in  the  spandrils.  The  now  missing  S.  Gimi- 
gnano  polyptych  (Figure  8),  consisted  of  five  panels, 
framed  as  cinqfoils,  with  a  more  than  half  length  figure 
in  each  and  a  smaller  one  in  each  gable  above.  The 
central  figure  was  the  Madonna  with  the  fully  clothed 
Child,  very  heavily  seated  in  her  arms,  holding  a  large 
crown  with  both  hands.  On  her  right  were  Dominic 
and  the  Baptist  and  on  the  left  a  young  deacon, 
Laurence  or  Stephen,  and  Catherine. 

Little  demonstration  is  required  to  convince  the  stu- 
dent that  these  three  works  are  due  to  the  same  hand. 

To  begin  with,  they  partake  of  the  same  mood.  For 
designs  so  Ducciesque  as  they  still  are  in  the  main,  they 
are  unusually  emotional,  sentimental  and  even  ve- 
hement in  expression.  The  action  is  agitated,  to  the  ex- 
tent at  least  that  the  severe  restraint  of  the  formula  per- 
mits of  action.  Of  the  colour  I  shall  not  speak  because 
I  do  not  recall  what  it  was  at  S.  Gimignano,  and  at  S. 
Croce  the  surface  is  so  spoilt  that  it  scarcely  resembles 
the  original  state.  As  design,  however,  the  central 
panel  containing  the  Madonna  and  Child  in  the  last 
mentioned  work  is  so  close  to  the  one  in  the  Fogliano 
triptych  that  it  would  be  insulting  the  student's  intelli- 
gence to  propose  to  prove  the  obvious  identity  of  the 
mind  and  hand  that  created  them.  The  S.  Galgano 
resembles  in  expression  if  not  type  the  Francis  at  S. 
Croce,  and  he  and  Ansano  as  well  show  a  peculiarity  in 

i6 


the  cut  of  the  hair  which  we  find  again  on  the  head  of 
the  saint  on  our  extreme  left  at  S.  Croce.  This  pecul- 
iarity, of  which  we  may  have  to  speak  yet  again,  consists 
of  a  fan-shaped  shock  which,  starting  from  toward  the 
crown,  spreads  over  the  forehead  between  the  waving 
locks  that  fall  at  the  sides.  Between  these  two  altar- 
pieces  and  the  third,  the  former  S^.  Gimignano  one,  the 
resemblances  are  not  so  striking,  although  convincing 
enough:  between  the  head  of  the  Child  in  each;  the 
face  of  the  Madonna  there  and  at  S.  Croce;  between 
the  Francis  in  the  last  named  and  the  Dominic  at  S. 
Gimignano;  and  between  the  deacon  there,  and  the 
youthful  saints  in  the  gables  and  predella  at  Florence. 
Rather  than  insist  on  a  matter  so  patent  as  that  these 
three  works  are  by  the  same  hand,  we  shall  do  better  to 
turn  to  the  questions  of  their  affinities  to  the  rest  of 
Sienese  painting,  and  of  their  chronological  relations 
to  each  other. 

The  question  of  affinities,  too,  offers  no  difficulties. 
Dr.  De  Nicola,  whose  sense  of  Sienese  art  is  unsur- 
passed, after  reconstructing  the  Fogliano  Triptych  and 
identifying  it  as  by  the  hand  that  painted  the  S.  Croce 
Polyptych,  decided  that  the  latter  was  manifestly  by  a 
close  follower  of  Ugolino.^  The  resemblances  are  not 
few,  and  might  prove  even  more  striking  if  we  could 
rediscover  the  Madonna  that  formed  the  centre  piece 
among  the  many  panels  he  painted  for  the  altar  of  S. 
Croce.  The  intensity,  the  vehemence  of  expression  re- 
call him;  the  knitted  brows  recall  his  saints;  the  look 

^Burlington  Magazine,  Dec,  1912. 

17 


of  the  Child  reminds  us  of  his  angels;  the  hands  are 
singularly  alike,  and  the  way  the  little  fingers  disap- 
pear under  the  others,  particularly  in  the  Fogliano 
Triptych,  is  an  exaggeration  of  a  mannerism  of  Ugo- 
lino's.  The  draperies  too  are  modelled  after  his,  more 
linear  than  common  among  the  followers  of  Duccio. 
And  yet  it  is  as  easy  to  discover  affinities  with  Pietro 
Lorenzetti,  not  only  of  expression  such  as  may  have 
come  through  Ugolino,  who  I  believe  must  have  been 
influenced  by  his  greater  fellow-pupil,  but  in  pattern 
and  action  as  well.  The  Madonnas  at  &.  Croce  and 
Fogliano,  for  instance,  with  their  pose  off  the  frontal, 
their  sideways  look,  and  their  mantles  tucked  under 
their  arms,  occur  in  Sienese  painting  so  far  as  I  can  re- 
member only  in  Pietro  and  perhaps  Ambrogio  Loren- 
zetti. The  Holy  Children,  too,  remind  us  vividly  of 
these  masters,  the  One  in  the  S.  Gimignano  altarpiece 
particularly. 

The  problem  of  chronology  is  far  more  complicated 
but  three  whole  polyptychs  should  offer  ample  mate- 
rials for  a  solution. 

We  should  at  the  start  dispel  from  our  minds  the  no- 
tion that  a  pupil  of  Ugolino's  must  somehow  have  been 
too  old  to  be  strongly  influenced  by  the  Lorenzetti.  As 
I  have  just  hinted,  it  is  not  impossible  that  Ugolino  him- 
self was  affected  by  them,  for  although  a  follower  no 
doubt  of  Duccio's,  there  is  no  reason  for  assuming  that 
he  was  an  old  man  when  we  lose  sight  of  him  in  1337; 
and  indeed  his  masterpiece,  the  "Madonna"  of  S.  Cas- 
ciano,  recently  assigned  to  him  by  Dr.  De  Nicola,  seems 
to  have  been  painted  after  1335. 

18 


J 


/ 


Among  the  many  auxiliary  studies  required  to  facili- 
tate the  connoisseur's  researches,  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant should  be  the  study  of  poses  in  general  and  of  those 
of  the  Madonna  in  particular.  It  probably  would  be 
discovered  that  it  was  the  French,  feeling  the  need  of  an 
art  less  rigid  and  more  human  than  could  be  compassed 
by  severe  frontality,  who  had  the  genius  to  turn  the 
figure  on  its  own  axis  so  as  to  bring  it  into  relation  with 
the  other  figures.  That  change  alone  made  it  possible 
for  the  Holy  Child  to  smile  at  His  Mother  and  for  her, 
at  times  wistfully  and  at  other  times  joyously,  to  smile 
back  at  Him  in  a  way  that  anticipated,  by  two  hundred 
years  and  more,  the  Milanese  Madonnas  inspired  by 
Leonardo  da  Vinci.  Giovanni  Pisano  brought  the  new 
pose  and  the  new  feeling  to  Tuscany,  but  although 
painting  quickly  adopted  his  eager,  appealing  Child, 
it  took  a  generation  before  the  Virgin  began  to  turn  her 
whole  figure  and  not  her  head  alone.  To  represent  her 
standing  sideways  was  an  innovation  that  Tuscan  paint- 
ing in  the  Trecento  did  not  seem  greatly  to  favour. 
The  Lorenzetti,  inspired  as  nobody  else  by  Giovanni 
Pisano,  could  not  help  trying  it,  but  tried  it  so  seldom 
that  I  can  not  remember  many  instances. 

Much  rarer  still  is  the  motive  of  the  Madonna  stand- 
ing sideways  with  her  mantle  tucked  under  the  right 
arm.  I  can  recall  none  belonging  to  the  public  except 
the  Madonna  in  Ambrogio's  polyptych  in  the  Siena 
Academy,  and  only  three  or  four  in  private  collections, 
as,  for  example,  a  full  length  one  in  my  own  possession 
and  a  half  length  one  in  Mr.  Charles  Loeser's,  all  dat- 
ing, be  it  noted,  according  to  careful  calculation  from 

19 


about  1325.  One  is  tempted  to  infer  that  the  experi- 
ment, although  so  successful  as  art,  did  not  please — the 
elders.  But  meanwhile  it  was  imitated  by  our  painter 
at  S.  Croce  and  at  Fogliano,  for  in  both  works,  as  we 
remember,  the  Madonna  is  seen  as  if  standing  sideways 
with  her  mantle  tucked  under  her  right  arm.  Presum- 
ably a  motive  that  did  not  win  favour  must  have 
been  copied  soon  after  it  was  introduced,  that  is  to  say, 
soon  after  1325,  but  as  other  considerations  may  modify 
this  result  we  must  now  turn  to  them 

We  remarked  a  while  ago  the  fan-shaped  shock  of 
hair  over  the  foreheads  of  Ansano  and  Galgano  in  the 
Fogliano  triptych  and  of  the  old  saint  on  our  extreme 
left  in  the  S.  Croce  altarpiece.  The  arrangement  of 
the  hair  is  as  subject  to  fashion  as  dress  itself,  and  for  the 
same  reason ;  it  is  easy  to  cut  and  curl  and  dispose  as  any 
article  of  apparel.  This  particular  shock  is  perhaps 
vaguely  anticipated  in  Duccio's  Maestas  finished  in 
131 1,  and  in  works  by  Simone  of  no  later  date  than  1320, 
the  great  Theophany,  for  instance,  in  the  town  hall 
of  Siena,  or  the  Pisan  Polyptych.  The  closest  parallels 
occur  in  Ugolino,  unfortunately  undated,  in  two  small 
works  of  his  in  America,  a  ^^Daniel"  in  the  J.  G.  John- 
son collection  (plate  89  of  catalogue)  and  the  head  of  a 
greybeard  Saint  belonging  to  Mr.  Philip  Lehman  of 
New  York.  The  next  closest  occur  in  Pietro  Loren- 
zetti's  signed  and  dated  altarpiece  of  1329  at  S.  Ansano 
a  Dofano.^  Here,  however,  the  shock  begins  to  be 
scallop-shaped,  and  is  on  the  way  to  the  treatment  we 

®  While  on  the  S.  Ansano  a  Dof  ano  altarpiece  it  should  be  noted  how  much 
the  Child  there  resembles  the  one  at  Fogliano. 

20 


find  in  Simone's  frescoes  at  Assisi  of  some  six  or  more 
years  later.  As  our  artist  was,  in  other  respects,  closely 
related  with  both  Ugolino  and  Pietro,  he  no  doubt  fol- 
lowed them  in  this  trifle  as  well;  but  as  his  treatment 
is  not  so  advanced  as  we  found  it  in  a  work  of  1329,  we 
may  safely  assume  that  it  goes  back  two  or  three  years 
earlier:  to  the  time,  therefore,  that  the  pose  and  action 
brought  us  to,  that  is  to  say,  soon  after  1325. 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  a  study  of  all  the  patterns, 
whether  on  stuffs  or  jewels  or  ornaments,  would  con- 
firm this  date,  but  as  it  would  be  tedious  to  pursue  it 
here  I  shall  confine  myself,  before  drawing  this  part  of 
the  discussion  to  a  close,  to  a  matter  so  conspicuous  and 
important  as  frames. 

Frames  are  to  pictures  what  clothes  are  to  human 
beings,  and  it  is  probable  that,  in  the  Fourteenth  Cen- 
tury at  least,  the  framed  panel  was  not  prepared  by  the 
painter  himself  but  ordered  or  purchased  already  made 
from  the  framer.  Earlier  in  this  article  we  have  al- 
ready referred  to  this  in  connection  with  works  of  to- 
ward 1320.  Directly  afterwards,''  the  Gothic  frame 
came  in  and  ousted  the  round  arched  one,  although  a 
certain  number  of  the  last  continued  in  use  for  a  while, 
either  because  they  were  selling  at  a  discount  or  that 
the  older  people  would  not  change  over. 

The  frame  of  the  Fogliano  Madonna,  already  of  a 

''One  of  the  earliest  instances  of  Gothic  pointed  frames  is  Simone's  ex- 
quisite Polyptych  at  Orvieto  with  the  kneeling  Donor  (perhaps  the  most 
individualized  and  convincing  portrait  of  the  Italian  Trecento).  The  date 
under  the  central  panel  can  not  be  1320,  as  most  of  us  used  to  read  it  but 
two  or  more  years  later,  for  after  the  two  X's  there  are  traces  of  an  effaced 
letter  or  letters,  and  the  style,  too,  shows  a  definite  advance  on  the  Pisan 
paintings  of  that  date. 

21 


fairly  advanced  pointed  type,  has  the  peculiarity  of  dis- 
playing dragons  as  painted  ornaments  in  the  spandrils. 
The  identical  decoration  occurs  in  the  spandrils  of  a 
Simone  "Madonna"  belonging  to  Mrs.  J.  L.  Gardner  of 
Boston,  and  of  a  variant,  once  upon  a  time  at  Brussels, 
of  Segna  di  Bonaventura's  "Madonna"  in  the  Seminary 
at  Siena.  The  identity  of  shape  and  decoration  implies 
not  only  the  probability  that  the  frames  came  from  the 
same  maker  but  that  they  were  done  at  about  the  same 
time.  Now  the  chronological  arrangement  of  Si- 
mone's  works  obliges  us  to  date  the  Gardner  "Ma- 
donna" not  more  than  a  few  years  after  the  Pisa  polyp- 
tych  of  1320,  which  brings  us  to  about  1325,  and  a  simi- 
lar process  of  research  will  date  the  Segnesque  "Ma- 
donna" no  later. 

We  thus  may  venture  to  place  the  Fogliano  triptych 
not  long  after  1325,  and  it  follows  easily  that  the  S. 
Croce  polyptych  is  somewhat  earlier.  Its  panels  are 
not  cusped  and  not  so  pointed ;  and,  despite  the  singular 
likenesses  between  the  two  Madonnas,  the  general 
character  of  the  other  figures  is  much  more  Ducciesque 
and  closer  to  Ugolino  in  the  latter  than  in  the  former 
work.  As  for  the  third  of  this  group,  the  S.  Gimignano 
altarpiece,  it  is  certainly  later  than  either  of  the  others. 
Its  panels  approach  the  cinqfoil  rather  than  the  trefoil 
in  the  ornamentation  of  the  pointed  arches,  and  I  doubt 
whether  such  shapes  occurred  before  1325,  while  the 
types  approach  more  closely  to  the  Lorenzetti,  and  to 
the  Lorenzetti  of  about  1330  or  later.  It  will  suf- 
fice here  to  mention  the  singular  resemblance  of  the 
Child  to  the  Children  of  eager  darting  look  in  such 

22 


Fig.  9.     Amurogio  Lokenzetti:  Madonna 
Roccalbegna  (Grosseto) 


Madonnas  by  the  Lorenzetti  of  about  that  period  as 
Pietro's  at  Grosseto  and  Ambrogio's  in  the  Siena 
Academy  (No.  65)  and  at  Roccalbegna  (Figure  9).^ 

It  follows  from  the  discussion  just  completed  that  the 
S.  Croce,  Fogliano,  and  S.  Gimignano  series  of  panels 
are  all  by  the  same  hand,  that  they  were  painted  in  the 
order  named  within  the  years  1324-31  or  so,  and  that 
their  author  must  have  begun  as  a  pupil  of  Ugolino  and 
ended  as  a  follower  of  the  Lorenzetti.  Let  us  now  see 
whether  to  him  is  due  the  Fogg  "Nativity"  as  well.  If 
it  is,  we  shall  have  put  together  four  considerable 
works  that  imply  the  existence  of  a  hitherto  unidenti- 
fied artist,  while  the  differences  between  them,  with  the 
permissible  insertion  of  discreet  intervals  of  time,  will 
afford  glimpses  of  a  career  in  its  progress,  and  thus 
enable  us  to  assemble  the  nucleus  of  an  artistic  per- 
sonality. Other  works  which  we  may  agglomerate  to 
this  nucleus  will  enlarge  this  personality  and  neces- 
sarily modify  our  sense  of  its  momentum  and  direction, 
but  in  essence  it  should  remain,  like  character  in  gen- 
eral, true  enough  to  itself  to  be  recognizable  in  all  its 
varying  phases. 

After  what  we  have  learned  in  our  examination  of  the 
four  works  in  question,  namely,  the  three  series  of 
panels  and  the  "Nativity,"  we  shall  not  find  it  hard  to 
persuade  ourselves  that  all  are  by  the  same  hand.  For 
proofs  we  naturally  shall  look  first  at  the  work  closest 
in  date  to  the  last  mentioned,  and  as,  apart  from  con- 

8  Reproduced  here  chiefly  because  of  its  interest  as  an  entirely  unknowa 
picture  by  this  great  master. 

23  • 


siderations  of  authorship,  we  have  concluded  that  the 
Fogg  picture  must  have  been  designed  somewhere 
about  1335,  and  the  S.  Gimignano  polyp tych  as  late  per- 
haps as  1 33 1,  it  is  to  this  polyptych  that  we  shall  turn 
first.  We  find  that  the  Madonnas  have  faces  which  re- 
semble each  other  singularly,  the  heads  of  the  Children 
likewise,  and  that  the  startled,  eager,  dramatic  shepherd 
in  the  one  is  of  the  closest  kin  to  the  Dominic  and  Bap- 
tist in  the  other.  In  the  droop  even  more  than  in  the 
shape  of  the  Blessed  Virgin's  hands  in  each  we  observe 
a  similar  likeness  and  the  mussel-like  ear  of  the  shep- 
herd is  all  but  identical  with  Dominic's.  Looking  at 
the  S.  Croce  Polyptych  we  discover  that  the  saint  seen 
on  our  extreme  left  in  type,  features,  peculiarities  of 
hair-dressing  (the  fan-shaped  shock  over  the  fore- 
head), folds  of  drapery  and  hand,  is  almost  a  line  for 
line  study  for  the  Joseph  in  the  "Nativity."  In  the 
Fogliano  Triptych  what  strikes  us  chiefly  is  the  same 
colour  scheme  of  golden  brown  that  we  have  in  the 
Fogg  picture. 

It  may  be  assumed  that  the  trained  student  who  has 
had  the  patience  and  humility  to  follow  the  evidence 
will  find  it  more  than  adequate  to  the  purpose  of  prov- 
ing that  the  last  named  work,  the  "Nativity,"  is  due  to 
the  mind  and  hand  responsible  for  the  other  works. 
Their  relations  to  each  other  have  already  been  estab- 
lished, and  we  now  may  conclude  without  rashness  that 
this  hand,  first  guided  by  Ugolino,  as  we  see  in  the  S. 
Croce  polyptych,  leaned  more  and  more  toward  the 
Lorenzetti,  as  we  note  progressively  in  the  three  other 
works.     If  any  doubt  lingers  in  our  minds  it  will  be 

24 


c      c     f     "c 


Fig.  10.     Ugolino  Lorenzetti:  The  Crucifixion 

Collection  of  Mr.  B.  Berenson,  Settignano 


5      5     \>       >  ■>   . 


t  5 


'  .  <   t     < 


dispelled  by  the  examination  of  two  or  three  paintings 
more  that  are  certainly  by  the  same  hand,  besides  one  or 
two  less  certain  ones  that  claim  attention  before  we  can 
sum  up  our  knowledge  and  give  our  present  impression 
of  the  author  of  the  Cambridge  "Nativity." 

Two  of  the  pictures  that  seem  to  me  to  be  beyond 
question  by  our  author  represent  the  same  subject,  the 
Crucifixion.  One  is  an  upright  panel  in  my  collec- 
tion ^  and  the  other  is  an  oblong  panel,  probably  part  of 
a  predella,  in  the  Louvre.  In  the  upright  one  (Figure 
lo),  the  treatment  remains  Ducciesque,  with  episodes 
culled,  as  it  were,  from  the  sublime  Crucifixion  in  the 
Maestas.  Our  master  betrays  himself  first  in  the 
warmth,  brilliance  and  radiance  of  the  colour,  surpass- 
ing in  this  respect,  no  doubt  only  because  of  its  better 
preservation,  all  his  other  works,  and  then  in  the  types, 
in  the  astonished  expression,  in  the  prominence  given  to 
the  whites  of  the  eyes,  and  in  a  way  the  draperies  have 
of  stretching  for  no  reason  into  angularity  or  flatness. 
It  is  a  design  he  must  have  executed  between  the  S. 
Croce  Polyptych  and  the  Fogliano  Triptych.^^  The 
oblong  "Crucifixion"  in  the  Louvre  (No.  1665)  is  more 
original  in  conception  (Figure  11).  Its  division  into 
distinct  groups,  its  horsemen  with  their  carefully  stud- 

®The  dealer  of  whom  I  bought  it  years  ago  said  that  it  came  from 
Lugano,  where  there  remained  a  companion  piece. 

i<^  Among  the  Ducciesque  "Crucifixions"  two  stand  very  close  to  this  one, 
the  one  possibly  by  our  author  himself,  known  to  me  in  reproduction  only, 
belonging  to  Prince  A.  Gagarine  (see  Les  Anciennes  £coles  de  Peinture 
dans  les  Palais  et  Collections  pri'ves  Russes,  Bruxelles,  Van  Oest,  1910)  and 
the  other  in  the  gallery  of  the  New  York  Historical  Association  (No  189) 
very  likely  by  an  imitator  of  our  Master. 

25 


ied  cuirasses,  mail  and  helmets,  its  touch,  as  it  were, 
of  deliberate  Byzantinism,  its  curious  corroded  colour- 
ing, used  to  suggest  to  me  an  archaising  painter,  and 
make  me  wonder  whether  he  might  not  be  Giovanni  di 
Paolo.  It  is  clear  now  that  it  was  painted  by  the  au- 
thor of  the  Fogg  ^'Nativity,"  in  a  moment  not  long 
after  the  S.  Gimignano  Polyptych.  Look  carefully  at 
the  types,  the  draperies,  the  knitted  brows,  the  eyes,  the 
ears,  and  you  will  end  by  agreeing.  The  Christ  on  the 
cross  is,  by  the  way,  nearly  identical  with  the  Eternal 
in  the  ''Nativity." 

If  these  two  panels  just  described  hover  between 
Duccio  and  Pietro  Lorenzetti,  the  work  that  we  turn  to 
next  is  so  close  to  the  last  named  Master  that  when  I 
first  saw  it  I  supposed  it  to  be  by  him.  At  that  time  it 
belonged  to  Mr.  C.  B.  Perkins,  the  heir  of  the  famous 
writer  on  Tuscan  sculpture,  Mr.  C.  C.  Perkins  of  Bos- 
ton, but  it  now  forms  part  of  Mrs.  Gardner's  collection 
(Figure  12) .  Its  shape  is  almost  unique  at  Siena,  for  it 
is  a  small  arched  tabernacle  and  decorated,  like  many 
a  wayside  shrine  all  over  Italy,  with  paintings  on  the 
back  as  well  as  on  the  embrasure.  We  see  the  Blessed 
Virgin  seated  sideways  on  a  wide  shallow  throne  while 
the  Child  in  her  arms  plays  with  a  bird,  fiercely  and 
cruelly — in  the  character  given  Him  in  the  Gospels  of 
the  Infancy — while  to  right  and  left  and  above  are 
ranged  Cherubim  and  Angels,  Peter  and  Paul,  Cather- 
ine and  the  Magdalen,  and  in  the  embrasure  the  Baptist 
and  Evangelist,  Nicholas,  and  Anthony  Abbot. 

Not  only  is  this  portable  shrine  close  to  Pietro  Loren- 
zetti, but  close  to  him  at  a  definite  moment,  represented 

26 


Fig.  12.     Ugolino  Lorenzetti  :  Tabernacle 
Collection  of  Mrs.  J.  L.  Gardner,  Boston,   U.  S.  A. 


Fig.  13.     PiETRO  LoRENZETTi :  Madonna 

Grosseto 


by  three  "Madonnas"  which  were  painted,  as  I  have 
good  reason  to  believe,  between  1330  and  1335.  One  of 
these,  at  Grosseto  (Figure  13),  we  have  mentioned  al- 
ready because  of  the  striking  resemblance  between  the 
Child  there  and  the  Infant  in  the  S.  Gimignano  polyp- 
tych.  More  striking  still  is  the  resemblance  to  the 
Child  in  Mrs.  Gardner's  Tabernacle,  although  nearest 
of  all  to  the  fierceness  of  the  latter  Child's  action  is  that 
of  the  Child  in  the  second  of  these  "Madonnas,"  a  panel 
in  S.  Pietro  Ovile  at  Siena.  The  third  is  in  the  Siena 
Academy  (No.  80).  All  three  Virgins  sit  on  elab- 
orately draped  thrones,  and  have  so  much  in  common 
with  the  types  and  mannerisms  of  our  painter  that  it 
took  me  no  slight  effort  to  distinguish  between  them  and 
his  real  works.  The  resemblance,  to  take  but  one  in- 
stance, between  the  "Madonna  and  Child"  in  the  Siena 
Academy  and  those  in  the  S.  Gimignano  altarpiece 
seems  created  for  the  confusion  of  connoisseurs. 

And  yet  the  author  of  the  Fogg  "Nativity"  betrays 
himself  in  many  ways.  In  the  first  place,  the  Taber- 
nacle has  the  general  character  that  by  this  time  we 
have  learned  to  recognize  at  sight,  the  "all-overishness" 
that  the  great  psychologist  William  James  used  to  speak 
of,  which  determines  our  decisions  more  than  all  the 
detailed  analysis  that  can  be  brought  in  proof.  Con- 
descending, nevetheless,  to  facts,  we  may  point  to  the 
types  of  the  old  men  glowing  with  prophetic  passion, 
to  the  astonished  looks,  and  prominent  whites  of  the 
eyes,  to  the  same  shape  of  hands  and  the  same  kind  of 
folds  which  have  all  become  familiar  to  us  as  we  studied 
our  artist's  other  works.     An  expression  so  like  to  that 

27 


of  the  shepherd  in  the  Fogg  "Nativity"  as  the  Baptist's 
in  Mrs.  Gardner's  Tabernacle,  a  Paul  in  the  last  named 
so  like  the  one  in  the  gable  above  the  Baptist's  at  S. 
Croce,  old  saints  so  like  the  ones  there  and  here,  a  cast 
of  drapery  as  identical  as  Peter's  in  our  Tabernacle  and 
the  Evangelist's  in  the  Louvre  "Crucifixion,"  a  hand  so 
like  our  Madonna's  and  that  of  our  Lady  at  S.  Gimi- 
gnano  or  the  S.  Ansano  in  the  Fogliano  Triptych,  bear 
strong  corroborating  v^itness  to  the  conclusion  that  all 
are  due  to  the  same  brain  and  habits.  Chronologically, 
too,  it  fits  perfectly  into  the  canon.  We  have  seen  that 
in  so  far  as  it  depends  upon  those  of  Lorenzetti's  paint- 
ings, which  our  artist  v^as  imitating  just  then,  they 
dated  from  after  1330,  and  that  its  next  of  kin  among 
works  by  the  same  hand  was  the  S.  Gimignano  polyp- 
tych,  which  we  have  placed  about  1331.  In  the  canon, 
therefore,  it  finds  room  after  the  last  named  achieve- 
ment and  before  the  Fogg  "Nativity,"  which,  as  we 
shall  recall,  we  decided  to  date  about  1335. 

To  these  works  that  I  think  I  am  justified  in  ascrib- 
ing to  the  same  artist  I  shall  now  add  two  more.  The 
first,  consisting  of  four  panels  in  the  Pisa  Gallery  with 
a  full  length  figure  in  each,  the  stray  remains  of  some 
scattered  polyptych,  I  should  accept  as  his  without 
hesitation  if  I  did  not  find  them  a  trifle  summary  and 
coarse  in  execution  (Figure  14).  The  fault  may  be 
due  to  a  certain  carelessness,  or  because  their  position  on 
the  polyptych  demanded  a  larger  treatment,  or  merely 
to  the  present  darkened  and  corroded  condition  of  the 
surface,  or  to  all  these  causes  in  combination.  I  can 
not  admit,  however,  that  their  design  at  least  was  due 

28 


Fig.  15.    Ugolino  Lorenzetti:  Annunciation  and  Saints 

The  J.  G.  Johnson  Collection,  Philadelphia,   U.  S.  A. 


to  anyone  else,  nor  much  if  any  of  the  execution.  The 
types  are  his,  with  the  crimpy  hair,  and  whites  of  the 
eyes  showing  so  prominently.  The  hands  are  his, 
Lucy's,  for  instance,  like  S.  Ansano's  in  the  Fogliano 
triptych,  and  Catherine's  like  those  in  Mrs.  Gardner's 
Tabernacle:  the  draperies  are  his,  too,  as  is  so  mani- 
fest in  the  Bartholomew,  with  whom  we  need  only 
parallel  the  Baptist  in  the  Louvre  ^^Crucifixion"  and 
the  Peter  in  the  Tabernacle.  Finally,  the  Catherine  is 
all  but  identical  with  the  same  saint  in  the  S.  Gimi- 
gnano  polyptych. 

Perhaps  it  is  only  the  timidity  of  age  that  makes  me 
hesitate  at  all  in  annexing  to  our  group  the  pair  of 
shutters  with  ten  rather  fluently  sketched  and  charm- 
ingly coloured  little  figures  in  the  J.  G.  Johnson  collec- 
tion (Figure  15).  There  scarcely  can  exist  a  more 
serious  reason  for  reluctance  to  accept  them,  for  not 
only  are  they  worthy  of  the  others  by  our  artist  but  most 
intimately  related  to  them.  The  figure  of  Bartholo- 
mew, for  instance,  is  all  but  the  same  saint  as  at  Pisa,  the 
Lucy  all  but  identical  with  the  one  there  again,  the 
young  Deacon  and  Gabriel  are  close  to  those  in  the  S. 
Gimignano  polyptych,  and  the  Andrew  resembles  the 
old  Evangelist  in  Mrs.  Gardner's  Tabernacle.  Finally, 
the  same  Andrew's  folds,  and  those  of  Bartholomew 
and  Gabriel  as  well,  have  all  the  peculiarities  of  mis- 
placed flatness  and  tightness  that  we  have  seen  so  fre- 
quently in  the  other  works  by  the  author  of  the  Fogg 
"Nativity."  I  venture  to  conclude  that  there  is  small 
excuse  for  doubting  that  these  little  figures,  too,  must  be 
by  him.     Again,  we  are  encouraged  by  the  facility 

29 


wherewith  one  may  insert  them  in  the  canon.  They 
find  their  natural  place  between  the  Pisa  figures  and  the 
**Nativity/'  between  133 1  or  so  and  1335,  let  us  say. 


11 


IV 

More  works  by  the  same  hand  will  appear  in  time, 
as  soon  perhaps  as  other  students  can  bring  their  con- 
tributions to  the  subject.  Meanwhile  we  have  enough 
already,  stretching,  as  we  have  seen,  over  a  period  of 
ten  years,  to  form  the  nucleus,  we  may  even  go  so  far 
as  to  say  the  torso,  of  an  artistic  personality. 

It  is  an  agreeable  and  attractive  one.  There  is  some- 
thing at  once  fresh  and  youthful,  passionate  and  ardent 
in  his  figures.  If  he  never  abandons  himself  to  such 
tortured  agonies  of  almost  grotesque  grief  as  the  Loren- 
zetti  sometimes  exhibit  (Pietro,  for  instance,  at  Assisi), 
he  attains  a  certain  airiness,  a  gayety  almost,  that  radiate 
conspicuously  from  his  S.  Croce  and  Fogliano  and 
Johnson  panels.  And  yet  he  is  scarcely  the  inferior  of 
these  great  Masters  in  his  gifts  of  eloquence  and  dra- 
matic arrangement,  as  we  have  seen  in  his  "Cruci- 
fixions," the  Louvre  one  particularly,  and  in  the  "Na- 
tivity."    And  much  as  he  leans  on  them,  he  is  no  slavish 

11  As  I  wrote  of  these  shutters  some  seven  years  ago  without  foreseeing  the 
present  study,  it  may  be  of  some  interest  to  read  what  I  said  then: — 

"These  arc  among  the  most  spirited,  brilliant  and  attractive  creations  of 
the  Sienese  School.  One  is  at  a  loss  as  to  their  exact  authorship.  They 
do  not  perfectly  coincide  with  any  unquestioned  work  of  Pietro's,  being  more 
radiantly  clear  and  golden  in  colour  and  of  a  blither  spirit.  Nevertheless 
they  are  too  close  to  him  in  every  way  to  be  by  any  one  but  a  very  near 
follower,  and  among  these  there  is  none  who  attains  to  a  quality  so  worthy 
of  the  master  himself.  It  is  thus  better  to  assume  that  they  are  by  him 
until  more  precise  acquaintance  with  Sienese  art  proves  or  disproves  the 
attribution."  See  my  catalogue  of  the  Italian  Masters  in  the  J.  G.  Johnson 
Collection,  p.  53. 

30 


imitator.  On  the  contrary,  in  the  last  named  panel,  his 
most  considerable  achievement,  he  displays  as  much  in- 
dependence of  them  as  kinship  with  them.  The  more  I 
meditate  on  this,  his  maturest  work,  the  more  do  I  be- 
come aware  therein  of  a  serenity,  a  ponderation  of 
thought,  and  a  command  of  artistic  resources  which 
gives  its  creator  a  distinct  and  honourable  place  among 
his  Sienese  contemporaries.  We  shall  recall  wonder- 
ing what  could  have  inspired  a  composition  in  many 
respects  so  singular.  We  need  no  longer  hesitate  to 
conclude  that,  no  matter  what  theologian  or  poet  set  his 
task  for  him,  the  painter  who  could  make  a  composition 
so  original  was  no  ordinary  artist.  It  is  not  likely  that 
among  his  fellows  we  shall  end  by  putting  him  on  a 
level  with  Simone  or  the  Lorenzetti,  but  he  may  turn 
out  ultimately  to  have,  when  all  is  considered,  the  merit 
and  rank  of  a  Lippo  Memmi.  If  he  scarcely  attains 
this  artist's  almost  uniform  loveliness  of  features  and 
daintiness  of  workmanship,  he  is  more  poignant,  more 
absorbing,  more  personal.  As  a  colourist  also  he  stands 
apart.  In  his  better  preserved  panels  the  gamut  re- 
minds me  at  times  of  the  East  ^^  with  its  unhackneyed 
transitions  and  unexpected  intensities.  He  almost 
harks  back  to  the  most  wonderful  of  all  Italian  Medie- 
val masters  of  tone  and  pigment  and  technique,  the  un- 
known Sienese  of  a  generation  or  two  before  Duccio 
who  painted  an  altarpiece  to  the  glory  of  the  Baptist 
now  in  the  Siena  Academy  (No.  14).     And  withal  he 

12  In  the  Louvre  "Crucifixion"  one  of  the  horsemen  wears  Persian  head- 
gear. As  is  manifest  in  Pietro  Lorenzetti's  frescoes  at  S.  Francesco  in 
Siena,  at  about  this  time  the  arts  and  crafts  of  the  contemporary  Orient  were 
beginning  to  invade   Italy. 

31 


seems  to  have  had  an  enterprising  and  experimental 
mind,  as  we  may  infer  from  the  fact  that  each  of  his 
remaining  works  is  distinct  from  the  other. 

This  last  quality  may,  however,  be  accounted  for  in 
yet  another  and  not  less  probable  way  if  we  suppose  that 
these  works  represent  not  a  whole  career,  but  only  the 
initial,  necessarily  tentative  part  of  one.  As  we  have 
seen,  it  seems  to  start  out  toward  1327  with  the  S.  Croce 
Polyptych  and  to  end  some  ten  or  more  years  later  with 
the  Fogg  "Nativity,"  for  none  of  these  paintings — 
the  only  ones  known  at  present — is  very  likely  to  be  of 
later  date.  What  became  of  him  then,  at  the  height 
of  his  maturity?  If  facts  warranted,  it  would  be  de- 
lightful to  establish  that  we  have  here  the  youth  of 
an  artist  hitherto  known  to  us  only  in  full  career.  But 
at  first  appearance,  this  pupil  of  Ugolino  is  already 
under  the  influence  of  Pietro  Lorenzetti,  and  in  each 
of  the  several  works  we  have  examined  this  dependence 
increases,  until  finally,  as  in  Mrs.  Gardner's  Tabernacle 
and  the  J.  G.  Johnson  panels,  he  is  scarcely  to  be  dis- 
tinguished from  his  leader.  True,  the  "Nativity,"  his 
latest  achievement,  is  more  severe,  more  emancipated 
from  the  Lorenzetti,  as  if  its  author  were  suddenly 
reaching  out  to  a  serener  and  more  severely  plastic  art; 
but  what  career  known  to  us  only  in  its  maturity  could 
it  possibly  have  preceded? 

I  can  think  of  two  only  that  could  come  under  con- 
sideration, Barna's,  and  Lippo  Vanni's. 

Now  Barna,  "the  most  tragic  minded"  of  Sienese  as 
he  has  been  called,  is  an  artist  whom  it  is  easy  enough 

32 


to  estimate  but  very  difBcult  to  place,  for  the  traditions 
with  regard  to  him  are  confusing,  and  documents  con- 
cerning him  offer  no  security.  We  thus  are  left  to  our 
own  resources,  which  consist  of  the  inferences  we  may 
draw  from  the  frescoes  at  S.  Gimignano.  These  reveal 
an  artist  who  no  doubt  owed  not  a  little  to  the  passion 
and  intensity  of  the  Lorenzetti,  but  who  yet  remained 
faithful  to  the  types,  colouring  and  even  compositions 
of  Simone  and  his  school.  And  as  he  seems,  in  turn, 
to  have  been  the  chief  inspiration  of  Bartolo  di  Fredi 
and  Andrea  Vanni,  we  can  perhaps  conclude  that  his 
brief  flowering  season  occurred  not  long  after  but 
scarcely  before  1350.  Not  only  do  I  fail  to  discover  in 
the  works  by  our  painter,  which  as  we  remember  are 
of  overwhelmingly  Lorenzetti  character,  anything  in 
their  style,  their  types,  or  their  colouring  compelling 
us  to  regard  them  as  a  preparation  for  the  frescoes  at 
S.  Gimignano,  but  their  date  excludes  the  likelihood, 
for  the  author  of  the  Fogg  "Nativity"  had  a  career  of 
at  least  ten  years  behind  him  when  he  painted  that 
panel  about  1335;  and  fifteen  years  later,  the  earliest 
probable  date  of  Barna's  designs,  he  would  have  been 
a  man  toward  fifty,  and  not  the  young  man  traditionally 
credited  with  that  great  achievement.  And  besides, 
what  became  of  him  in  the  intervening  years?  It 
would  be  a  singular,  I  may  add  an  almost  unparalleled, 
accident  that  swept  away  every  trace  of  the  activity  of 
those  earlier  middle  years  usually  so  productive. 

If  Barna  is  excluded,  despite  the  uncertainty  sur- 
rounding his  place  in  Sienese  Art,  we  shall  find  it  no 

33 


harder  to  eliminate  Lippo  Vanni.  Dr.  De  Nicola's  re- 
searches have  given  definite  substance  to  this  artist, 
formerly  a  mere  name,  and  to  the  hearsay  reputation 
hitherto  enjoyed  by  him  we  may  now  add  several  works 
that  we  can  know  and  appreciate  at  first  hand.  It  turns 
out  that  as  a  painter  he  must  have  been  of  about  the 
measure  of  our  artist.  They  even  have  one  or  two 
points  of  contact.  Thus,  the  Francis  in  Lippo's  fresco 
at  S.  Francesco  of  Siena  is  so  like  the  one  in  our  author's 
panels  of  the  Johnson  collection  that  they  doubtless 
must  find  a  common  origin  in  some  figure  by  one  of 
the  Lorenzetti ;  and  in  the  same  way  and  for  a  similar 
reason,  the  dead  Christ  under  the  S.  Croce  Madonna 
is  like  the  One  under  Lippo's  Triptych  at  SS.  Sisto  e 
Domenico  in  Rome.  Lippo's  dates,  too,  which,  unlike 
Barna's,  are  well  known,  would  fit  in  better  with  our 
author's.  Nevertheless,  two  strong  objections  oppose 
our  linking  together  the  two  groups  of  works  into  one 
career.  In  the  first  place,  although  Lippo  was  active 
at  least  as  early  as  1344,  it  is  most  improbable  that  he 
had  already,  as  would  be  the  case  with  our  painter,  had 
a  career  of  twenty  years  behind  him.  Then  there 
would  arise  the  question  what  became  of  him  in  the  dec- 
ade that  intervened  between  the  execution  of  the  Fogg 
"Nativity"  and  the  miniatures  of  1345  assigned  to  him 
by  Dr.  De  Nicola.  More  negative  still  are  the  conclu- 
sions drawn  from  the  fact  that  while  Lippo  Vanni,  like 
all  his  contemporaries,  owed  a  great  deal  to  the  Loren- 
zetti, he,  even  more  than  Barna,  followed  the  stream  of 
Simone,  and  is  at  times  (as  in  a  "Madonna"  once  at  a 
Roman  dealer's,  and  in  the  "St.  Paul"  in  the  Bartolini- 

34 


Salimbeni-Vivai  collection  at  Florence)  scarcely  to  be 
distinguished  from  Lippo  Memmi. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  Luca  di  Tome  and 
Jacopo  di  Mino  can  not  be  thought  of  in  this  con- 
nection, although  I  mention  them  to  say  that  I  have 
considered  and  refused  their  claims.  The  truth  seems 
to  be  that  the  career  which  we  have  studied  ended  with 
the  Fogg  "Nativity."  To  painters,  as  to  other  mortals, 
death  comes  sometimes  sooner  than  later,  and  in  all 
probability  it  snatched  ours  away  in  his  prime.  He 
did  not  perish  utterly.  In  Bartolo  di  Fredi's  and  Tad- 
deo  di  Bartolo's  angels  we  seem  to  feel  a  reminiscence 
of  his  art. 

By  what  name  shall  we  call  him?  My  preference 
goes  toward  a  nomenclature  which  has  the  advantage 
of  being  at  the  same  time  descriptive,  mnemonic  and 
alive,  in  place  of  the  abstract  shadows  of  abstractions, 
evoking  nothing  real,  affected  by  that  most  German  of 
centuries,  the  nineteenth,  with  its  "Masters  of  the  Half 
Figures,"  "Masters  of  the  Pink  Sash,"  "Masters  of  the 
Faces  with  Two  Eyes,"  or  Masters  of  many-linked 
place  names.  Our  author  was,  as  we  have  seen,  an 
artist  who  started  as  the  pupil  of  Ugolino  and  ended  as 
the  follower  of  the  Lorenzetti.  I  propose,  therefore, 
to  designate  him,  until  archives  one  day  yield  up  the 
secret  of  how  his  contemporaries  called  him,  by  the 
linked  names  of  his  two  teachers,  "Ugolino  Loren- 
zetti." But  if  that  name  irritates  those  who  did  not 
like  my  "Amico  di  Sandro"  and  "Alunno  di  Do- 
menico,"  they  are  free  to  speak  of  him  as  the  "Master 
of  the  Fogg  Art  Museum  Harvard  University  Cam- 

35 


bridge  Massachusetts  United  States  of  American 
Nativity."  I  shall  carry  my  patience  so  far  as  to  allow 
them  to  put  hyphens  between  these  words  and  even  to 
run  them  all  into  one. 


36 


TWO  FURTHER  PICTURES  BY 
LIPPO  VANNI 

UNTIL  not  long  ago  "Lippo  Vanni"  was  a  mere 
name,  the  more  tantalizing  as  it  occurred  as  a 
signature  under  a  work  so  important  as  the  great  *'Coro- 
nation  of  the  Virgin"  in  the  Palazzo  Publico  at  Siena. 
Although  obviously  by  Domenico  di  Bartolo  and  Sano 
di  Pietro,  there  remained  the  inscription  to  witness 
that  before  these  Quattrocento  painters  renewed  it  en- 
tirely, it  had  been  by  a  Trecento  artist  who  had  left  a 
reputation.  Welcome  as  these  later  masters  are,  we 
should,  considering  that  their  careers  are  adequately 
known  to  us  in  other  ways,  gladly  have  sacrificed  their 
renovation  for  any  tolerable  bit  of  what  they  replaced. 
For  me  personally  the  problem  was  only  the  more  teas- 
ing because  I  was  acquainted  at  least  as  long  as  ten 
years  ago  with  one  signed  work,  and  the  photograph  of 
another.  But  the  signed  "St.  Paul"  in  the  Bartolini- 
Salimbeni-Vivai  palace  at  Florence  furnished  me,  at 
that  time  at  least,  with  no  adequate  means  of  distin- 
guishing it  from  the  handiwork  of  Lippo  Memmi, 
while  the  photograph  I  then  had  of  the  triptych  at  SS. 
Sisto  e  Domenico  was  not  clear  enough  to  furnish  the 
desired  information.^ 

iThe  slight  fragments  in  the  former  cloisters  of  S.  Domenico  at  Siena 
told  me  nothing. 

37 


It  was  the  adequate  reproduction  of  this  last  work  ^ 
which  made  it  possible  to  begin  to  distinguish  between 
Lippo  Vanni  and  his  closest  contemporaries,  Lippo 
Memmi,  for  instance  (to  whom  the  Imbert  "Ma- 
donna" had  been  attributed  just  before  without  chal- 
lenge) or  Luca  di  Tome,  to  whom  I  was  inclined  to 
ascribe  the  important  frescoed  polyptych  in  the  Sem- 
inary chapel  at  Siena,  restored  to  him  by  Dr.  De  Nicola. 
Thanks  chiefly  to  the  effort  and  insight  of  the  last 
named  scholar,  we  have  at  last  acquired  sufficient 
familiarity  with  Lippo  Vanni's  character  to  be  able  to 
distinguish  him  in  his  works  whenever  we  encounter 
them.  An  important  addition  to  their  as  yet  very 
limited  number  was  made  by  Mr.  F.  Mason  Perkins 
with  a  "Madonna"  at  Le  Mans  (Rassegna  d'Arte,  May, 
1914). 

It  is  my  belief  that  I  can  add  two  more  to  the  scanty 
list,  a  small  triptych  of  no  great  interest  in  the  new 
Pinacoteca  Vaticana,  and  another  triptych  in  the  collec- 
tion of  Mr.  Henry  Walters  at  Baltimore.  As  theJast 
increases  our  concept  of  its  author,  I  shall  speak  of  it 
first. 

This  portable  shrine  (Figure  16),  the  gable  and 
predella  of  which  served  as  a  reliquary,  shows  in  the 
center  the  Madonna  seated  sideways  on  a  richly  draped 
throne  with  the  Child  as  if  walking  in  her  lap,  while 
the  Baptist  and  St.  Aurea  stand  on  either  side.  In  the 
dexter  wing  we  see  Jerome  and  a  saint  who  may  be  Bar- 
tholomew with  the  Virgin  Annunciate  above,  and  in  the 
sinister  wing  Dominic  and  a  military  saint  with  a  ban- 

2  Rassegna  d'Arte  Senese  1910,  p.  39  et  seg, 

38 


Fig.  i6.     Lippo  Vanni  :  Triptych 
Collection  of  Mr.  Henry   Walters,  Baltimore,   U.  S. 


«•    f  /f    <        c 


I   (.t  ,<^  f 


Fig.  17.    Lippo  Vanni  :  Madonna 

Perugia 


ner,  Censurinus  perhaps,  and  above  the  Angel  of  the 
Annunciation  unfurling  a  scroll.  The  saints  are  la- 
belled but  I  am  a  poor  epigraphist  and  have  not  been 
able  to  decipher  all  the  names.  I  am  an  even  worse 
herald,  and  do  not  know  the  coat  of  arms  consisting  of 
three  conjoined  shields  that  we  discover  at  the  bottom 
of  each  of  the  wings.  The  size  of  the  triptych  open  is 
43  by  45  cm. 

The  most  striking  fact  about  the  work — a  fact  which 
unfortunately  the  reproduction  can  scarcely  begin  to 
substantiate — is  the  dazzling  brilliance  and  golden 
radiance  of  the  colour,  combined  with  a  handling  of  a 
freedom  almost  unparalleled  in  the  Trecento  and  a 
fluency,  a  liquidity  of  medium  perhaps  unique  at  the 
time. 

These  characteristics  alone  sufficed  to  prevent  my  at- 
tributing the  little  tabernacle  to  Pietro  Lorenzetti,  al- 
though much  else  therein,  the  Madonna  and  Child  for 
instance,  the  St.  Aurea,  and  the  Virgin  Annunciate, 
might  have  tempted  me  to  do  so.  The  dramatic  in- 
tensity, the  expressiveness  of  the  figures,  something  in 
the  Baptist,  and  much  in  the  colour  at  first  inclined  me, 
on  the  other  hand,  to  think  of  Matteo  da  Viterbo  as  its 
author.  There  is  no  further  need  of  guessing.  This 
jewel-like  triptych  is  undoubtedly  by  Lippo  Vanni. 

I  was  put  on  the  track  of  this  correct  attribution 
when  I  identified  the  author  of  this  work  in  the  paint- 
ing of  a  ^'Madonna"  (Figure  17),  the  fragrant  no  doubt 
of  a  triptych  or  polyptych,  in  the  Perugia  Gallery 
(Sala  V,  No.  i).  In  colouring  and  technique  it  ap- 
proaches the  Walters  picture  enough  to  suggest  the 

39 


same  craftsman,  while  the  Children  have  much  in  com- 
mon in  expression  and  more  still  in  the  curious  tissue  of 
their  tunics  which  consist  of  delicate  golden  matting, 
rather  than  of  ordinary  cloth  of  gold.  The  draping, 
by  the  way,  of  the  Virgin's  throne  in  the  triptych  has  the 
same  texture.  It  is  true  that  the  Perugia  picture  is  not 
officially  attributed  to  Lippo  Vanni,  but  the  hair  and 
ears  of  both  personages  and  the  Child's  feet  are  enough 
to  prove  that  it  is  by  him.  As.  Dr.  De  Nicola  and  I 
have  arrived  at  the  same  conclusion  independently, 
there  is  a  fair  chance  that  we  are  not  both  wrong.^ 

Once  on  the  track  it  was  easy  to  find  right  and  left 
witnesses  to  the  correctness  of  the  attribution.  Thus 
the  male  saints  have  the  roundish  heads  and  faces  char- 
acteristic of  Lippo  Vanni,  the  female  saint  shows  a 
head  no  less  characteristic,  and  peculiar  to  him  are  the 
matted  straggling  ringlets  of  the  Baptist's  beard,  so  like 
those  of  the  corresponding  figure  in  the  Seminary  fresco 
at  Siena.  And  as  if  to  clench  the  case,  we  have  a  most 
curious  bit  of  proof. 

The  female  saint  in  our  triptych  holds  a  slim  Oriental 
vase,  but  that  would  scarcely  enable  us  to  identify  her 
if  she  were  not  labelled  as  S.  AUREA.  Now  I  can  vouch 
for  the  fact  that  to  my  remembrance  I  have  never  en- 
countered this  saint  but  once  before.  That  once,  how- 
ever, happened  to  have  been  in  Lippo  Vanni's  signed 
masterpiece  at  SS.  Domenico  e  Sisto,  where  again  she 
is  identified  by  the  label  (Figure  i8).  Now  Dr.  De 
Nicola  {ibid.  p.  44)  has  traced  back  the  latter  work  to  a 
church  dedicated  to  that  female  saint,  in  what  seems  to 

*  Vita  d'Arte   1912,  p.  44  of  separate   issue. 

40 


O     D  5  O    '      O 


H 

>  g 


Fig.  19.    Lippo  Vanni:  Triptych 

Vatican   Gallery,  Rome 


have  been  the  Sienese  quarter  of  Rome.  It  is  surely 
more  than  likely  that  this  reliquary  was  painted  for  the 
same  Sienese  shrine,^  and  seeing  how  much  the  charac- 
ter of  the  painting  has  in  common  with  Lippo  Vanni, 
it  would  indeed  be  startling  if  another  were  its  author. 

In  no  other  achievement  thus  far  known  to  me  is 
Lippo  Vanni  so  close  to  the  Lorenzetti,  to  Pietro  in 
particular,  in  feeling  and  in  types,  and  so  remote  in 
colour  and  technique ;  but  I  find  no  clue  in  this  fact  to 
the  date  of  the  little  triptych.  A  handling  so  fluent  is 
likely  to  be  of  its  author's  later  years.  The  motive  of 
the  Announcing  Angel  unfurling  a  scroll  is  at  Siena 
more  common  in  Fei  and  his  kindred  than  earlier. 
We  may  infer  that  it  follows  rather  than  precedes  the 
larger  work  for  S.  Aurea. 

A  word  will  suffice  for  the  small  triptych  in  the  Pin- 
acoteca  Vaticana  (No.  91,  Figure  19).  It,  too,  is  a 
reliquary,  and  is  decorated  with  the  figures  of  Dominic 
between  Thomas  Aquinas  and  Peter  Martyr.  Colour 
and  technique  approach  the  Perugia  and  Baltimore 
works,  while  the  types  are  obviously  Lippo's.  Com- 
pare for  instance  the  Thomas  here  with  the  one  in  the 
predella  at  SS.  Domenico  e  Sisto. 

If  I  do  not  err,  the  last  named  altarpiece  and  the 
Perugian  ^'Madonna"  bear  signs  of  its  author's  contact 
with  Florence.  I  can  not  resist  finding  reminiscences 
of  Taddeo  Gaddi  in  the  type  and  character  of  the  face 
at  Perugia.     In  the  four  scenes  on  the  wings  of  the 

*  Before  coming  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Walters,  the  small  triptych  be- 
longed to  Don  Marcello  Massarenti,  and  it  is  a  permissible  conjecture  that 
this  Papal  almoner  procured  it  from  where  the  larger  one  had  found  a 
permanent  resting  place. 

41 


large  triptych  the  action  and  even  the  composition  seem 
at  first  sight  to  be  entirely  in  the  formula  of  Ambrogio 
Lorenzetti.  Closer  study  seems  to  reveal  in  the  con- 
struction, modelling  and  draping  traces  of  contact 
with  the  most  Sienese  of  all  Florentines  that  ever 
painted,  Bernardo  Daddi. 


42 


A  SIENESE  LITTLE  MASTER  IN  NEW  YORK 

AND  ELSEWHERE:  COLA  DI 

PETRUCCIOLI 

OFTEN  enough  one  comes  across  a  picture  which 
can  be  attached  to  no  known  painter,  or  group, 
nor  even  to  any  other  one  work  which,  although  re- 
maining unclassified,  may  have  been  already  a  subject 
of  study.  Nevertheless  this  picture  may  display  some 
quality,  some  characteristic,  some  mannerism,  or  even 
some  absurdity  that  attracts  attention,  and  puts  us  on 
the  lookout  for  its  repetition  elsewhere.  When  we 
succeed  in  finding  it  in  another  panel  we  are  stimulated 
to  search  for  a  third  and  a  fourth.  Needless  to  add 
that  this  something  for  which  we  are  on  the  watch,  this 
something  so  peculiar  and  characteristic,  may,  in  paint- 
ings of  the  same  period  or  school,  be  taken  to  stand  for 
identity  of  hand.  But  as  even  the  humblest  artist  sel- 
dom turns  out  designs  as  like  as  pennies  coming  from 
the  same  mint,  any  three  or  four  works  manifestly  by 
the  same  painter  are  pretty  sure  to  betray  a  certain 
variety.  Then  it  happens  that  these  variations  retained 
in  our  memory  suddenly  converge  upon  a  picture  whose 
identity  has  hitherto  been  a  problem  and  link  it  to  the 
three  or  four  already  set  apart,  so  as  to  constitute  a 
fairly  well   articulated  group.     At  times,   but  more 

43 


rarely,  the  connoisseur  is  rewarded  by  discovering  a 
work  of  known  authorship  wherewith  to  head  his 
group,  and  if  the  whole  has  a  certain  aesthetic  value  as 
well,  he  will  not  be  denied  the  right  to  indulge  for  an 
illusive  moment  in  the  raptures  of  creative  research. 

Although  the  method  and  process  are  the  same,  the 
extreme  humility  of  the  few  paintings  that  form  the 
subject  of  this  article  afford  as  reward  only  the  mild 
pleasure  that  accrues  from  the  easy  exercise  of  one's 
faculties.  The  trained  student  finds  nothing  easier 
than  the  kind  of  task  just  described,  and  his  career  will 
afford  him  abundant  opportunity  for  performing  it. 

On  my  last  visit  to  New  York  I  noticed  in  the  Metro- 
politan Museum  a  small  triptych  trimmed  with  fat 
little  finials  like  broken  and  smoothed  over  coral 
branches.  (Figure  20.)  On  its  three  panels  are  the 
Blessed  Virgin,  angels  and  saints,  among  whom  we 
easily  distinguish  Anthony  Abbot,  the  Baptist,  Lucy 
Catherine,  the  Magdalen,  Peter  and  Paul.  Above 
them  all  in  the  gables  are  the  "Crucifixion"  and  the 
"Annunciation."  The  saucy  female  faces,  with  their 
pointed  little  noses,  sensitive  mouths  and  mad  eyes, 
amused  me,  and  their  quaint  piquancy  gave  me 
pleasure.  There  is  however  small  likelihood  that  this 
impression  was  deliberately  planned.  It  is  more 
probable  that  the  little  artist  who  painted  these  figures 
had  no  higher  ambition  than  to  imitate  his  masters  and 
models,  Andrea  Vanni,  Bartolo  di  Fredi,  and  Fei,  and 
that  the  pleasing  effect  is  the  accidental  result  of  his 
failure  to  achieve  even  such  a  modest  success.  The 
craftmanship  is  good  enough  to  make  up  to  a  certain 

44 


Fig.  20.     Cola  di  Petruccioli:  Triptych 

Metropolitan  Museum,  New  York,   U.  S,  A. 


"    e    5   »  .  •    •      •"' 


'^"^^^im^'^i^^mKi^mmm ' 


Fig.  21.     Cola  di  Petruccioli  :  Triptych 

Collection  of  Mr.   Charles  Looser,  Florence 


I     J  ».  •  !  •     .* 
»     >  ' 


.'■'  ■   ;    ;  ;"•■• :';  :■  ■•  '•  •"• 
-...A  =..::■  ••.•:'•.  !•::■■•■• 


Fig.  22.     Fei:  Madonna 

S.  DomenicOj  Siena 


Fig.  23.     Cola  di  Petruccioli:  Madonna  and  Saints 

Liechtenstein  Collection,   Vienna 


extent  for  other  deficiencies,  and  the  whole  air  of  the 
thing  roused  in  me  the  curiosity  of  the  absorbed  fancier 
of  the  painting  of  Siena  whom  nothing  that  that  school 
produced  during  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  centu- 
ries can  fail  to  interest.  At  the  time  I  could  not  have 
named  its  author,  but  I  vaguely  recalled  other  things  by 
the  same  hand. 

Sure  enough.  Returning  to  my  study  and  rummag- 
ing among  my  photographs  I  soon  found  several. 

As  close  as  any  to  the  one  in  the  Metropolitan 
Museum  is  another  small  triptych  belonging  to  Mr. 
Charles  Loeser  of  Florence  (Figure  21).  It  has  the 
same  kind  of  frame  with  its  fat  sleek  finials,  and  the 
same  kind  of  patterns  and  composition — the  Madonna 
with  angels  and  saints,  Andrew  and  the  Baptist,  another 
female  saint  and  Catherine,  Anthony  Abbot  and  James, 
and  in  the  gables  the  "Annunciation"  and  the  "Eter- 
nal." The  types  are  nearly  the  same,  with  the  same 
absurd  little  noses  and  uncertain,  quivering  mouths; 
but  the  whole  is  less  mannered  and  of  better  quality. 
The  general  impression  one  receives  of  its  author  is  that 
he  must  have  been  all  but  a  double  of  Fei.  There  is 
the  closest  likeness  in  arrangement,  in  flow  of  line,  and 
even  in  expression.  The  Virgin  and  Child  might  have 
been  copied  from  such  a  well  known  design  by  the  last 
named  artist  as  his  "Madonna"  in  S.  Domenico  at 
Siena  (Figure  22). 

In  the  Liechtenstein  collection  (Figure  23)  at  Vi- 
enna there  is  the  central  panel  of  yet  another  triptych 
representing  the  Madonna  with  Peter  and  Paul,  Cath- 
erine, and  another  sainted  lady  and  two  angels,  and  in 

45 


a  medallion  above,  the  Eternal  blessing.  The  tiny 
peaked  nose  of  the  Child,  the  look  in  the  eyes,  the  flow 
of  the  draperies  persuade  us  that  it  was  done  by  the 
same  little  master.  Only  here  he  is  closer  to  Andrea 
Vanni,  inspired  by  some  such  composition  by  that  grave 
artist  as  his  impressive  Madonna  and  Saints  with 
Mother  Eve  and  the  Serpent,  now  in  the  public  gallery 
of  Altenburg. 

No  sooner  did  I  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
trifling  paintings  just  described  were  from  the  same 
hand  than  they  solved  a  problem  which,  with  hundreds 
of  like  preoccupations,  had  been  troubling  me  for  some 
time. 

In  the  little  Umbrian  hill  town  of  Bettona,  fre- 
quented by  students  for  its  Fiorenzo  and  Perugino, 
there  is  in  the  church  of  S.  Maria  a  very  attractive  "As- 
sumption of  the  Blessed  Virgin"  (Figure  24).  Our 
Lady,  as  frontal  and  collected  as  a  Buddha,  sits  en- 
shrined in  the  midst  of  seraphim  in  a  Mandorla  which 
is  carried  aloft  and  accompanied  by  angels  wearing 
garlands.  Below,  most  of  the  apostles  look  into  her 
empty  tomb,  two  unexpectedly  bless  and  pray  over  a 
saint  of  much  smaller  proportions  standing  between 
them,  while  Thomas  leaps  up  in  the  traditional  Sienese 
way  to  catch  the  Madonna's  girdle.  In  the  medallions 
of  the  modernised  frame  appear  heads  of  prophets,  and 
in  the  upper  corners  of  the  picture,  Moses  and  Elias 
with  scrolls  on  which  we  read  the  words  ECCE  ViRGO 
ASUNTA.  In  the  corresponding  corners  below  are  two 
kneeling  donors. 

It  is  a  design  whose  whimsical  and  exotic  types,  and 

46 


Fig.  24.     Cola  di  Petruccioli:  Assumption  of  the  Virgin 

Bettona 


o  o      o  o 


o     o   .,     o 


Fig.    25A.     Cola    di    Petruc  c  ioli  :    Dii'ive  ii,    Cokuxatjox    of    the 

Virgin 

Town  Library,  Spello 


J   5         >  >      5 


.c      c    J    /c    i     c  ;      '         c    c  t 


Fig.  25.     Cola  di  Petruccioli  :  Diitych,  The  Crucifixion 
Town  Library,  Spello 


delicate  airiness  of  movement  helped,  in  a  measure,  to 
prepare  a  student  like  myself  to  prize  the  similar  com- 
positions that  were  being  painted  at  the  same  time,  or 
somewhat  earlier,  in  a  far  distant  island  known  then  to 
the  few,  who  had  ever  heard  of  it,  as  Cipango.  That 
alone  would  have  kept  it  fresh  in  my  memory,  and 
given  me  the  craving  to  identify  its  author. 

Until  recently  authorities  were  inclined  to  ascribe  it 
to  Bartolo  di  Fredi,  which  was  not  a  bad  guess.  Fei 
seemed  a  still  better  one  and  I  included  this  "Assump- 
tion" in  the  list  of  his  works,  placing  it,  however,  in  the 
early  and  therefore  less  ascertained  phase  of  his  art. 
But  now  one  need  guess  no  more.  The  evidence  that 
it  is  by  the  author  of  our  three  other  paintings  is  clear 
and  decisive.  The  little  pointed  noses,  the  quivering 
mouths,  the  look, — in  brief  the  entire  cast  of  counte- 
nance— are  the  same  in  them  all.  Many  other  details 
might  be  cited,  but  it  is  not  necessary  to  labour  a  demon- 
stration which  requires  the  trained  and  sincere  use  of 
the  eyes,  rather  than  verbal  persuasion. 

These  four  works  conjointly,  and  each  several  figure 
they  contain,  prodded  at  my  memory  until  it  yielded  up 
the  recollection  of  yet  another  creation  of  the  same 
hand;  and  this  time,  to  my  great  glee,  a  signed  one, 
revealing  the  name  of  the  painter,  a  certain  Cola 
Petruccioli  of  Orvieto.  We  shall  see  to  him  in  a  mo- 
ment, but  first  we  shall  attend  to  the  diptych  in  the 
Spello  library  (Figures  25  and  25a)  that  bears  this  sig- 
nature, and  the  date  1385,  and  satisfy  ourselves  that  it 
is  really  the  handiwork  of  the  same  craftsman  that  did 
the  other  four. 

47 


The  two  panels,  ruined  and  half  effaced  but  not  re- 
painted, were  first  published  some  ten  years  ago  by 
Giustino  Cristofani  in  "Augusta  Perusia"  (1907,  p.  54), 
and  the  somewhat  mutilated  inscription  correctly  inter- 
preted. The  two  panels  represent  the  "Crucifixion" 
and  the  "Coronation  of  the  Virgin"  with  the  "Annun- 
ciation" in  the  gables  above.  The  author  has  so  little 
skill  in  carrying  out  his  intentions  that  neither  the 
Mother  of  Our  Lord,  nor  the  Baptist  nor  the  Magda- 
len have  the  look  of  grief  and  contrition  that  he  must 
have  meant  to  give  them  in  the  presence  of  Christ 
Crucified.  The  other  scene  betrays  less  incapacity  be- 
cause less  was  required  of  the  artist.  The  Angels  blow 
and  strum  away  on  their  trumpets  and  viols,  the  robes 
and  embroideries  are  gorgeous,  and  the  two  principal 
figures  are  quaintly  impersonal.  The  quality  is  infe- 
rior, if  anything,  to  the  other  achievements  described, 
the  drawing  even  more  wobbly,  the  modelling  mussy. 
We  may  conclude,  therefore,  that  it  was  done  later  than 
those  we  studied  first.  Nor  is  it  so  unadulteratedly 
Sienese.  Had  we  no  information  about  these  panels,  I 
should  yet  be  tempted  to  think  that,  owing  to  a  faint 
infiltration  of  Alegretto  Nuzzi's  influence,  their  author, 
a  Sienese,  had  painted  them  in  Umbria. 

But  I  have  not  yet  attempted  to  prove  that  he  also 
was  the  author  of  the  four  little  works  that  we  found 
to  be  by  the  same  hand.  It  suffices  to  point  again  to 
the  peaked  faces,  with  noses  looking  somehow  un- 
finished, and  uncertain,  ill-placed  mouths,  and  to  the 
arabesques  formed  by  the  draperies.     Compare,  for  in- 

48 


^     ^       '  ?  ^  *  )  N 


stance,  the  Magdalen  with  the  Madonna  in  the  Metro- 
politan Museum  triptych. 

Cola  Petruccioli  was  not  absolutely  unknown,  for 
Fumi,  in  his  magnificent  volume  on  the  cathedral  of 
Orvieto,  published  more  than  one  document  concerning 
him,  and  a  fresco  of  the  "Crucifixion"  signed  and  dated 
1380  is  still  to  be  seen  in  the  not  easily  accessible  oratory 
under  the  choir  of  that  gorgeous  edifice.  Unfortu- 
nately I  can  offer  no  reproduction  of  this  design,  al- 
though it  would  clench  my  argument,  and  strengthen 
the  effort  I  shall  now  make  at  a  chronology  of  this  little 
master's  work. 

But  first  just  a  line  about  another  fresco  at  Orvieto 
in  the  church  of  S.  Giovenale  (Figure  26)  which,  to  my 
knowledge,  has  never  before  been  attributed  to  Petruc- 
cioli. It  represents  the  "Nativity,"  the  "Annuncia- 
tion" and  (unreproduced)  the  "Birth  of  the  Baptist." 
There  is  a  gracious  sweetness  about  the  Blessed  Virgin 
which  is  more  than  pleasing.  When  I  knew  less  inti- 
mately than  I  do  now  the  painters  of  Siena,  I  was  in- 
clined to  ascribe  this  fresco  to  Bartolo  di  Fredi,  but  a 
moment's  comparison  with  the  Spello  diptych  leaves  no 
doubt  that  it  must  have  been  painted  by  Cola  at  nearly 
the  same  time.  It  suffices  to  compare  the  angels  in 
the  "Nativity"  and  in  the  "Coronation." 

The  earliest  probably  of  the  works  we  have  ascribed 
to  Petruccioli  is  the  "Assumption"  at  Bettona.  It  is  the 
least  helpless  in  its  mannerisms  and  most  like  a  normal 
achievement  by  a  Sienese  who  follows  close  in  the  wake 
of  Barna,  the  Vannis,  and  Bartolo  di  Fredi.     Next 

49 


should  be  placed  Mr.  Loeser's  triptych,  in  which  Cola 
approaches  as  never  again  to  Fei.  I  have  not  had  the 
leisure  to  try  to  establish  the  chronology  of  the  last 
named  painter,  or  it  would  be  easy  to  know  the  exact 
date  of  Mr.  Loeser's  panel.  As  we  have  already  ob- 
served, the  Madonna  might  have  been  taken  over  from 
Fei's  at  S.  Domenico.  On  the  other  hand  both  may  be 
imitations  of  a  lost  original  by  Andrea  Vanni,  and  in 
the  Liechtenstein  "Madonna"  Petruccioli  recalls  that 
master  directly.  Last,  but  still  several  years  before 
the  dated  diptych  at  Spello,  should  be  placed  the  little 
tabernacle  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum. 

Although  our  modest  Orvietan  recalls  Fei  to  such  a 
degree  that  at  times  it  is  not  easy  to  keep  them  apart,  it 
would  be  rash  to  conclude  that  the  one  was  the  pupil 
of  the  other.  A  curious  coincidence  brings  it  about 
that  the  first  notice  we  discover  of  either  goes  back  to 
the  same  year  1372.  Most  likely  both  were  pupils  of 
Vanni  and  Bartolo,  and  the  imprint  of  the  latter  re- 
mained so  indelible  that,  as  we  have  seen,  Petruccioli 
in  his  frescoed  "Nativity"  of  about  1385,  designs  a 
Child  that  might  be  his.  It  is  probable,  however,  that 
Cola  did  not  remain  untouched  by  his  fellow-pupil. 

His  place  is  with  those  minor  painters  who  as  crafts- 
men were,  like  Fei  himself,  in  the  intermittent  employ 
of  the  great  cathedral  fabrics  to  do  a  bit  of  new  decora- 
tion here,  and  a  bit  of  refurbishing  there,  filling  in  the 
intervals  with  turning  out  pictures  to  order,  or,  as  is 
the  case  with  the  small  triptychs,  for  the  market. 
Siena  seems  to  have  been  particularly  rich  in  such  little 
men,  whom  indeed  Petruccioli  recalls,  as,  for  example, 

50 


Francesco  Vannuccio,  and,  a  generation  later,  Tino  di 
Bartolommeo  or  Nanni  di  Jacopo.  At  that  time  they 
had  to  seek  a  livelihood  far  away  from  home,  and  they 
can  be  tracked  not  only  to  Pisa  but  to  the  most  secluded 
recesses  of  Umbria  and  perhaps  even  to  Sicily. 


51 


A  CASSONE-FROISST  AT  LE  HAVRE  BY 
GIROLAMO  DA  CREMONA 

UNTIL  twenty  years  ago,  when  Mr.  W.  Rankin 
recognized  the  hand  of  Girolamo  da  Cremona  in 
a  picture  of  the  Jarves  Collection  representing  the 
"Nativity,"  that  artist  was  known  as  a  miniaturist  only. 
Since  then,  several  other  panel  paintings  have  been 
identified  as  his,  namely  the  "Christ  in  the  midst  of 
Saints"  at  Viterbo,  the  "Nativity,"  acquired  by  Count 
Serristori  of  Florence  from  Signor  Grandi  of  Milan, 
and  two  episodes  from  the  predella  of  an  altarpiece, 
one  representing  "Poppaea  giving  Alms  to  St.  Peter," 
and  the  other  "St.  Peter  healing  the  Cripple,"  the  first 
belonging  to  Lady  Henry  Somerset  at  Reigate  Priory, 
and  the  second,  to  the  Berlin  Gallery.  To  this  very 
scanty  list  I  propose  to  add  another,  a  cassone-ivont  at 
Le  Havre,  representing  the  "Rape  of  Helen." 

In  this  picture  (Figure  27),  Paris  is  seen  snatching 
Helen,  more  than  an  armful  for  him,  who  screams  and 
struggles,  while  an  accomplice  points  the  way  to  the 
crowded  galleons  awaiting  them.  On  the  left  we  see 
a  colonnaded  round  structure,  with  women  issuing 
from  it,  looking  back  as  they  run  away. 

It  is  an  attractive  dramatic  design,  telling  its  story 

52 


o 


'''■%:^  ■•% 


with  despatch,  with  liveliness,  and  a  touch  of  humour 
perhaps  intentional.     It  certainly  cannot  pretend  to 
the  refinement  that  a  Pesellino,  or  the  passion  that  a 
Botticelli  would  have  spent  upon  the  theme.     On  the 
other  hand,  from  every  point  of  view,  whether  of  in- 
terpretation,  or  arrangement,   or  structure,   it  is   an 
achievement  far  aboye  the  average,  and  perhaps  as 
much  of  an  achievement  as  we  may  expect  from  Giro- 
lamo ;  for  while  as  a  miniaturist  he  was  inferior  to  no^ 
Italian  of  the  seventh  and  eighth  decades  of  the  Quat-  > 
trocento,  as  a  painter,  in  the  full  sense  of  the  word,  we    ] 
probably  shall  never  be  able  to  place  him  in  even  the^ 
second  rank. 

This  panel  representing  a  profane  subject,  and  serv-x 
ing  a  purpose  merely  domestic,  proves  for  the  first  ^ 
time  that  Girolamo  was  a  professional  painter  in  the  / 
fullest  sense  of  the  word,  ready  to  execute  any  kind  of  / 
task  for  which  he  could  get  a  commission,  and  not 
merely  an  illuminator  who  occasionally  did  something '    ( 
for  a  church.     And  I  venture  to  doubt,  by  the  way,^ 
whether  even  Adolfo  Venturi,  who  sees  so  patently! 
the  hand  of  the  miniaturist,  and  that  sort  of  hand  only,/ 
in  the  Viterbo  altarpiece,  would  so  readily  distinguish 
it  here  from  that  of  any  other  full-fledged  painter. 

It  remains  to  prove  that  this  "Rape  of  Helen"  really 
is  by  Girolamo,  although  proof  is  indeed  scarcely 
necessary,  for  I  believe  that  once  his  name  is  mentioned 
in  connection  with  this  picture,  no  student  who  has 
thoroughly  mastered  Girolamo's  style,  would  hesitate 
an  instant  in  agreeing  that  it  is  by  him.  Detailed 
proof,  however,  is  naturally  not  wanting,  and  I  will 

53 


give  it  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  have  his  works  less 
clearly  in  their  memories. 

The  long  faces  with  the  wig-like  hair  framing  in  a 
high  forehead,  the  billowing  or  swirling  draperies,  the 
actions  and  attitudes,  the  large  unarticulated  hands, 
and  certain  features  of  the  architecture  are  matched 
again  and  again  in  his  illuminations  as  well  as  in  the 
few  panels  hitherto  ascribed  to  him. 

Let  us  begin  with  the  architecture.  The  colonnaded 
circular  structure  is  almost  the  same  as  in  the  Berlin 
predella,  and  the  laying  of  the  masonry  is  as  carefully 
drawn,  stone  for  stone,  as  in  that  building,  as  well  as 
in  most  others  that  Girolamo  ever  designed.  We  next 
take  up  the  long  faces,  those,  for  instance,  of  the  women 
standing  just  by  the  door  within.  We  find  them  much 
more  often  than  not  among  his  Sienese  miniatures. 
There  one  representing  the  "Epiphany"  (Figure  28), 
shows  a  youth  on  the  left,  with  the  identical  face  and 
almost  the  identical  expression  of  the  young  woman 
standing  behind  the  door,  while  the  one  against  the 
lintel,  not  only  in  face  but  in  structure  and  attitude  as 
well,  recalls  the  "Christ"  at  Viterbo.^  Helen,  with 
her  head  thrown  up,  bears  the  strongest  resemblance 
to  the  countenances  of  the  "Virgin  Martyrs"  occurring 
in  the  Sienese  illuminated  books  (Figure  29).  The 
"Resurrection"  in  the  same  series  (photo.  Alinari  Pe. 
2a.  9358)  shows,  in  a  soldier  scrambling  to  look  up,  an 
arm  and  hand  identical  with  the  right  of  the  Helen, 
while  the  other  hands,  wooden  and  unarticulated,  like 

1  Reproduced    in    Venturi's    Storia    VII,    3,    p.    473,    and    my    Study    and 
Criticism,  2nd  Series,  opp.  p.  98.    In  the  last  other  apposite  reproductions. 

54 


>     J   >'   >   J    J 


y    ->      >  J 


J  ,  >     '  » 


,         '>'    ;    ',  i     'i 


Fig.  28.     GiROLAMo  da  Cremona:  Epiphany 

Cathedral  Library,  Siena 


Fig.  29.     GiROLAMo  da  Cremona  :  Virgin  Martyr; 
Cathedral  Library,  Siena 


that  of  the  warrior  pointing  the  way  to  the  galley,  or 
of  the  young  woman  looking  back  as  she  runs  away,  are 
of  constant  occurrence  among  the  same  illuminations. 
A  perfect  parallel  is  offered  in  the  miniature  of  the 
two  Proto-hermits  (Photo.  Lombardi  201).  Par- 
allels with  the  swirling,  billowing  draperies  need  not 
be  pointed  out,  as  they  are  numerous  and  characteristic. 

There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  Girolamo  da 
Cremona  was  the  author  of  this  "Rape  of  Helen,"  and 
we  need  scarcely  hesitate  to  annex  it  to  the  canon  of  his 
works  and  use  it  as  material  for  enlarging  or  modify- 
ing, as  the  case  may  be,  our  notion  of  his  artistic  per- 
sonality. One  thing  results  more  clearly  here  than  in 
any  other  composition  of  his  known  to  us,  and  it  is 
this:  that  besides  influencing  his  Sienese  contempo- 
raries, he  in  turn  was  influenced  by  them.  In  the  Rei- 
gate  predella  "Poppaea"  certainly  recalls  Neroccio,  and 
its  companion  panel  at  Berlin  is  catalogued  there  as 
"Style  of  Francesco  di  Giorgio,"  and  does  in  fact,  in 
one  or  two  of  the  figures,  unmistakably  recall  that 
master.  In  this  cassone-ivont^  although  it  is  harder  to 
point  to  striking  resemblances,  the  same  master's  spirit 
is  even  more  pervasive,  as  if,  before  it  was  designed,  the 
relations  between  its  author  and  the  Sienese  artist  had 
been  constant  and  intimate. 

It  follows  that  no  other  of  Girolamo's  panels  was 
painted  as  late  as  this.  The  precise  date  cannot  even 
be  suggested,  for  we  know  little  of  this  master's  career. 
We  do  not  so  much  as  know  what  became  of  him  after 
1483,  nor  when  he  died.  I  suspect  from  an  illumina- 
tion to  be  published  elsewhere,  dating  probably  from 

55 


14-75}  ^hat  before  the  end  of  that  year,  part  of  which,  as 
we  know,  he  passed  in  Siena,  he  returned  north,  and  I 
conclude  that  he  executed  this  "Rape  of  Helen"  but 
little  if  any  later. 

Since  the  above  first  appeared  in  print,  M.  Seymour 
de  Ricci  drew  my  attention  to  the  fact  that  this  "Rape 
of  Helen"  was  the  pendant  of  a  "Rape  of  Europa"  now 
in  the  Louvre.  As  I  do  not  hesitate  to  ascribe  the  lat- 
ter to  Francesco  di  Giorgio,  and  as  both  panels  must 
have  been  painted  at  the  same  time,  it  is  more  than 
probable  that  they  were  executed  in  1475.  That  was 
the  year  in  which  Girolamo  left  Tuscany,  so  far  as  we 
know,  for  good. 


56 


>  5   '     3    '       5     1    J    >     5      >  '  1  1 


>     ,    >  '      ,     > 


Fig.  30.     Close  follower  of  Cossa  :  Obverse  of  Marriage  Salver  represent- 
ing Solomon  and  the  Queen  of  Sheba 

Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston,   U.  S.  A. 


A  FERRARESE  MARRIAGE-SALVER  IN 
THE  BOSTON  MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 

IN  the  Burlington  Magazine  for  May,  1917,  Pro- 
fessor Osvald  Siren  has  published  a  Marriage- 
Salver  recently  acquired  by  the  Boston  Museum  of 
Fine  Arts.  It  represents  on  the  one  side  the  "Meeting 
of  Solomon  and  the  Queen  of  Sheba"  (Figure  30),  and 
on  the  other  a  winged  putto  holding  a  cornucopia  in 
each  hand.  Looking  at  the  reproductions  I  should  not 
have  hesitated  to  say  "Obviously  close  to  Cossa."  But 
as  an  authority  like  Professor  Siren  has  ascribed  these 
designs  to  Boccatis,  and  as  his  attribution  has  met  with 
the  full  approval  of  the  Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts/ 
the  word  "obviously"  can  scarcely  apply.  Were  it  ob- 
vious, they  would  not  have  strayed  so  far  from  the  goal, 
for  it  is  a  far  cry  from  Camerino  to  Ferrara. 

I  am  not  sure  that  I  should  have  remembered  having 
seen  this  Salver  before,  if  Professor  Siren  did  not  have 
the  kindness  to  remind  me  that  I  mentioned  it  as  a  work 
by  Matteo  di  Giovanni  belonging  to  the  late  M.  Cham- 
briere- Aries  of  Paris.  Sure  enough,  yes,  it  all  comes 
back  to  me.  Many  years  ago,  just  how  many  I  cannot 
recall,  but  more  than  twenty,  for  it  already  is  entered  in 

1  See  Bulletin  of  that  institution  for  April,  1917.  I  am  indebted  to  Pro- 
fessor Fairbanks,  its  Director,  for  photographs  of  this,  as  well  as  of  many 
other  paintings  under  his  charge. 

57 


the  first  edition  of  my  "Central  Italian  Painters"  pub- 
lished in  1897,  many  years  ago  I  did  see  this  panel  and 
thought  it  was  by  Matteo  di  Giovanni.  Never  having 
encountered  it  since,  either  in  the  original  or  in  a  re- 
production, it  faded  from  memory,  and  I  kept  it  on  as 
a  Matteo  in  the  second  edition  of  the  book  just  men- 
tioned, on  the  principle  of  "w^hen  in  doubt  do  nothing." 
For  I  am  in  doubt  about  most  things  of  which  I  have 
not  had  a  fresh  experience  within  a  few  years,  and  I 
have  often  meditated  adopting  some  sign,  not  as  brutal 
as  a  question  mark,  to  put  after  a  picture  to  which  I 
have  in  that  time  had  no  direct  or  reflected  access. 

Of  course  this  Salver  is  not  by  Matteo  di  Giovanni; 
and  yet,  for  an  attribution  made  more  than  twenty  years 
ago,  with  no  photograph  to  afford  means  of  control,  it 
was  not,  as  I  shall  attempt  to  plead  presently,  either 
one  which  its  author  need  too  much  deplore,  or  students 
resent.  It  was  not  then  as  it  is  now,  when  the  frontiers 
of  schools  have  been  so  well  established,  and  their  boun- 
daries so  clearly  marked  that  there  is  no  good  reason 
for  failing  to  recognize  where  a  work  with  any  charac- 
ter belongs,  nor  as  now,  when  acquaintance  with  the 
minor  masters  has  increased  out  of  all  proportion  to 
what  we  had  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  and  when,  as 
now,  perfect  and  detailed  photographs  enable  the  com- 
petent and  sincere  student  to  reduce  guessing  to  a  min- 
imum. Now  we  have  a  right  to  resent  a  misleading 
attribution,  and  especially  one  that  takes  us  on  such  a 
totally  false  scent  as  does  the  attribution  of  this  Salver 
to  Boccatis.  And  yet  if  even  now,  with  all  these  facil- 
ities, it  still  takes  special  training  and  sound  judgment 

58 


to  place  a  picture  in  line  with  the  tendencies  and  aspira- 
tions that  influenced  its  author,  it  was  more  creditable 
to  have  had,  so  long  ago,  even  that  glimmer  of  them 
which  the  attribution  of  this  picture  to  the  Sienese 
painter  reveals,  than  disgraceful  to  have  failed  to  hit 
the  exact  mark.  Matteo  di  Giovanni  was  clearly  not 
its  author,  but  his  tendencies  and  aspirations  are  related 
to  those  which  formed  the  actual  painter,  whereas  Boc- 
catis  moved  in  a  totally  difiPerent  orbit. 

What  the  tendencies  and  aspirations  revealed  by  this 
Salver  may  be,  we  shall  learn  by  trying  to  get  its  "feel," 
its  aroma,  as  it  were.  We  must  first,  to  push  the  meta- 
phor, discover  whether  a  given  fruit  is  an  apple  or  a 
peach,  before  classing  it  as  a  pippin  or  a  clingstone. 


Every  touch  of  the  design  representing  "Solomon 
and  the  Queen  of  Sheba"  reveals  that  it  is  the  crea- 
tion of  an  art  striving  with  its  entire  might,  consciously 
and  deliberately,  to  master  the  problems  that  possessed 
and  obsessed  the  movement  known  as  the  Italian 
Renaissance.  Guided  by  the  Antique,  as  Dante  was 
by  Virgil,  the  artist-adventurers  of  Florence  and  their 
disciples  and  converts  went  through  an  Inferno  of 
crude  science,  and  a  Purgatory  of  assimilation,  to 
reach  finally  the  Paradise  of  perfect  utterance  granted 
to  a  Botticelli  and  a  Leonardo,  a  Raphael  and  a  Gior- 
gione,  a  Correggio  and  a  Titian,  a  Veronese  and  a 
Tintoret,  a  Caravaggio  and  a  Velasquez.  The  author 
of  this  picture  is  still  on  the  Mountain  of  Purgatory, 
but  he  climbs  it  with  confidence.     He  has  cast  off  nearly 

59 


every  trace  of  Medievalism,  only  the  faintest  whiff  of  it 
lingering  about  the  details  of  his  Temple,  in  the  pin- 
nacles and  in  the  tracery  of  the  little  windows.  In  all 
else  the  author  is  revealed  as  an  able  and  ambitious 
student  of  the  structural  and  architectural  problems 
that  had  haunted  Brunellesco  and  absorbed  Alberti. 
And  naturally  he  is  an  expert  in  the  still  new  science  of 
linear  perspective,  and  is  perhaps  as  successful  as  any  in 
the  third  quarter  of  the  Fifteenth  Century,  not  except- 
ing Piero  della  Francesca  or  Mantegna.  He  can  even 
place  the  feet  in  perfect  perspective — an  art  mastered 
by  few  Quattrocento  painters  and  by  scarcely  any  Um- 
brians,  not  even  by  Perugino — and  as  if  to  assure  us 
that  he  is  well  aware  what  an  achievement  it  is,  draws 
attention  to  it  by  letting  the  feet  of  Solomon  and  the 
Queen  project  over  the  platform.  Moreover,  he  en- 
joys an  unusual  mastery  of  aerial  perspective,  and  as  a 
result  he  has  a  nearly  consummate  sense  of  planes,  so 
that  each  of  his  volumes  and  masses  keeps  its  place  and 
preserves  its  impenetrability,  and  immobility.  And  he 
is  no  mean  draughtsman  of  the  human  figure.  He  un- 
derstands its  proportions,  he  can  give  it  inner  substance, 
he  can  articulate  it,  and  put  it  in  motion,  and  he  can 
endow  it  with  character,  and  even  individuality. 

On  the  back  of  the  Salver,  the  design  of  the  winged 
little  boy  standing  on  a  rock  in  a  landscape  (Figure  31 ) 
is  treated  more  summarily,  and  although  quite  as  attrac- 
tive, it  seems  to  lack  the  refinement  of  line  and  perfec- 
tion of  planes  that  distinguish  the  other  side.  Never- 
theless, it  does  not  in  any  way  cancel  the  impression 
made  by  the  front.     It  only  takes  the  least  bit  off  its 

60 


Fig.  31.     Close  follower  of  Cossa:  Reverse  of  Marrl^ge  Salver  repre- 
senting PuTTO  WITH  Cornucopias 

Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston,    U.  S.  A. 


edge,  as  may  be  expected  from  a  hastier  execution.  But 
even  the  little  boy  betrays  a  post-scientific  acquaintance 
with  the  nude.  He,  too,  stands  on  his  feet,  and  these 
feet  press  on  a  rock  of  intelligible  construction  in  front 
of  a  landscape  with  forms  and  distances  fairly  realized, 
while  the  whole  figure  keeps  its  planes  parallel  with 
the  horizon.  In  the  flutings  of  the  cornucopias  we  re- 
turn to  the  precision  of  touch  and  severity  of  the  pat- 
tern on  the  front. 

If  this  estimate  of  the  pictures  on  this  Salver  is  the 
right  one,  it  follows  necessarily  that  its  author  must 
have  been  one  of  those  Quattrocento  realists,  who  de- 
serve the  name  of  artist-adventurers  because  they  were 
the  pioneers  of  their  craft,  sending  their  spirit  out  afar 
in  every  direction  so  that  it  might  bring  back  the  real- 
ization of  form,  movement  and  character.  Theirs  is 
the  sort  of  painting  which  a  hundred  years  ago  would 
have  been  ascribed  by  the  amateur  to  Mantegna,  or  by 
the  more  learned  to  Pollajuolo,  since  these  two  names 
resumed  for  our  ancestors,  who  felt  so  directly  and 
groped  not  at  all,  the  entire  generation  that  preceded 
what  they  so  quaintly  called  "the  Golden  Age." 

With  this  appreciation  always  in  mind,  I  shall  now 
try  to  explain  how  it  was  that  more  than  twenty  years 
ago  one  could,  without  being  too  foolish,  stray  into  as- 
cribing these  paintings  to  Matteo  di  Giovanni  of  Siena. 
We  shall  then  examine  whether  it  be  permissible  to 
give  them  to  Boccatis  of  Camerino  nowadays,  when  his 
artistic  personality  is  already  so  well  known.  It  will 
turn  out  that  such  an  attribution  has  no  grounds  in 
reason,  and  I  shall  close  by  endeavouring  to  account  for 

6i 


my  present  conviction  that  the  author  of  these  designs 
must  have  been  a  Ferrarese  on  the  very  closest  terms 
with  Cossa  and  Tura. 

II 

The  truth  is  that  no  artist  south  of  the  Apennines 
has  so  much  in  common  with  the  Quattrocento  painters 
of  Ferrara  as  Matteo  di  Giovanni.  With  Tura  and 
Cossa  and  their  immediate  followers  he  has  so  many 
resemblances,  that  their  works  would  have  been  con- 
fused frequently  but  for  the  fact  that,  until  three  or  four 
decades  ago,  so  few  native  paintings  had  left  Sienese 
territory.  I  am  not  aware,  for  instance,  that  a  single 
authentic  masterpiece  of  that  school  was  taken  to  Paris 
by  the  commissaires  of  Napoleon.  When  finally  these 
works  did  begin  to  emigrate,  it  was,  so  to  speak,  in  the 
full  light  of  day,  and  the  recollection  of  their  origin 
had  not  faded  before  it  could  be  fixed  by  scholarship. 
If  I  was  the  only  student  to  confound  Matteo  with  his 
Ferrarese  contemporaries,  I  was  paying  the  penalty  of 
having  been  the  first  to  attempt  a  comprehensive  study 
of  Matteo's  career  and  to  publish  a  skeleton  history 
thereof  in  the  guise  of  a  list  of  his  works. 

For,  indeed,  one  of  the  curiosities  in  the  history  of 
taste  is  the  immense  time  it  has  taken  for  Quattrocento 
Sienese  painting  to  come  to  its  own.  Doubtless  the 
circumstance  that  so  little  of  its  product  got  abroad  had 
something  to  do  with  it,  since  an  art  that  is  too  home- 
keeping  seldom  becomes  that  precipitate  of  foreign  ap- 
preciation, a  patrimonio  artistico,  A  certain  number 
of  us,  it  is  true,  frequented  Siena  itself,  but  we  were 

62 


blinded  by  the  once  vital  teaching  of  Winckelmann, 
Goethe  and  Burckhardt,  who  allow  no  place  to  any 
fifteenth  century  painter  except  Ghirlandaio,  and  by 
the  taste  that  found  exotic  satisfaction  in  the  costumed 
inanities  of  a  Pintoricchio  or  the  meretricious  loveliness 
of  a  Sodoma.  These  two  favourites  barred  the  way, 
but  there  also  was  a  physical  barrier,  the  squalid  gloom 
and  the  marrow-chilling  cold  of  the  gallery  in  which  so 
many  of  the  Neroccios  and  Cecco  di  Giorgios  and  Mat- 
teos  were  jailed — and,  for  that  matter,  still  are. 

It  is  pitiful  to  read  in  the  Linnaean  pages  of  Caval- 
caselle  the  bored  reprobation  bestowed  upon  these  fre- 
quently powerful,  sometimes  exquisite,  and  always  fas- 
cinating artists.  Yet  things  are  not  much  better  even 
now.  To  my  knowledge  during  the  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury that  these  artists  and  their  fellows  have  been  one 
of  my  occupations — one  to  which  I  return  most  zest- 
fully and  joyfully — only  two  students  have  continu- 
ously, seriously  and  fruitfully  taken  an  interest  in  them. 
Dr.  G.  de  Nicola  and  Mr.  F.  Mason  Perkins.  Where 
the  so-called  general  public — that  is  to  say  the  hundred 
or  two  of  fanciers  the  world  over,  who  really  desire 
accurate  information  about  such  a  subject — ^where  this 
public  still  stands  with  regard  to  Sienese  Quottrocento 
painting,  may  be  inferred  from  the  scant  and  contempt- 
uous paragraphs  given  to  it  in  the  most  comprehensive 
work  on  the  history  of  Italian  art  attempted  in  our  time, 
Professor  Adolfo  Venturi's  Storia,^ 

2  How  little  Sienese  art  is  understood  in  university  and  official  circles  in 
Rome  may  be  inferred  from  the  following:  There  is  in  the  Vatican  Gallery 
a  small  picture  (Figure  55)  representing  St.  Barbara  watching  the  building 
of  the  tower  in  which  she  is  to  be  immured   (No  157).    In  the  first  edition 

63 


But  to  return  to  the  parallels  and  resemblances  be- 
tween Matteo  and  Tura  and  Cossa,  they  are  indeed 
close  and  startling.  All,  to  begin  with,  are  in  dead 
earnest  about  form,  but  not  very  serious,  for  did  they 
deserve  this  last  epithet,  they  would,  like  the  Floren- 
tines, have  cultivated  form  for  its  own  reward — ulti- 
mately a  vision  answering  to  the  most  imperative  and 
constant  needs  of  the  human  spirit  and  not  to  the  frivo- 
lous fanaticism  of  the  passing  hour — instead  of  show- 
ing such  feverish  eagerness  to  pluck  its  fruit,  long  be- 
fore it  was  ripe,  to  give  relish  to  their  mood.  One  is 
led  to  wonder  whether  this  mood,  as  we  now  seize  it, 
was  due  entirely  to  a  temperamental  identity  between 
these  three  masters,  or  largely  to  a  kindred  impatience 
over  the  length  of  the  road  to  perfection.  Possibly 
most  art  worth  the  name  which  yet  is  not  the  highest,  is 

of  my  "Central  Italian  Painters"  which  appeared  twenty  years  ago,  I 
included  it  with  the  list  of  Matteo's  works.  To-day  I  should  be  ready  to 
go  so  far  as  to  suggest  that  it  had  formed  part  of  the  predella  to  that 
painter's  famous  "St.  Barbara"  altarpiece  in  S.  Domenico  at  Siena.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  seems  likely  that  rather  than  by  himself  it  was  executed  by 
his  able  assistant  and  all  but  Doppelgauger,  Guidoccio  Cozzarelli.  In  the 
anonymous  catalogue  of  the  gallery  published  in  1913,  evidently  compiled 
by  a  person  with  a  good  conceit  of  himself  (seeing  how  seldom  he  quotes 
authorities  when  agreeing  and  how  frequently  when  disagreeing  with 
them),  this  panel  is  catalogued  as  "Florentine  School."  The  Anderson 
photograph  of  the  same  picture  (24013)  is  labelled  "Ferrara  School,"  as  I 
beg  my  readers  to  remember,  for  Mr.  Anderson — to  whose  large-hearted 
enterprise  our  studies  owe  more  than  to  any  of  us  writers — always  gets  the 
most   authoritative   advice. 

At  Florence  it  is  no  better,  but  there  the  fault  is  of  the  still  surviving  dis- 
taste of  the  Tuscan  capital  for  her  only  rival.  In  Florence  the  pestilential 
scirocco  is  popularly  still  called  "the  wind  of  Siena."  A  revealing  accident 
happened  to  the  Florentine  authorities  not  long  ago.  They  acquired  for 
the  Uffizi  a  beautiful  "Madonna  and  four  Angels,"  a  relatively  early  work 
by  Matteo  di  Giovanni,  while  under  the  impression  that  they  were  buying 
a  Boccatis. 

64 


but  a  cry  of  despair  over  the  too  distant  goal,  and  over 
the  anticipation  of  mortal  weariness  suggested  by  the 
thought  of  attaining  it. 

All  three  artists,  Matteo  as  well  as  Tura  and  Cossa, 
arrest  their  interest  in  form  directly  they  can  achieve 
hardness  of  substance  and  trenchant  precision  of  out- 
line. They  tend  therefore  to  depict  a  world  mineral, 
metallic,  and  lunar,  such  as  might  be  evoked  by  the 
Sagas  of  the  Berserkers  rather  than  by  the  peopled 
earth  that  we  dwell  in,  we  who  are  the  heirs  of  Medi- 
terranean civilization,  with  its  infinite  tenderness  as  well 
as  its  appalling  madness.  Tura,  and  Cossa  and  Matteo 
have  nevertheless  left  pictures  not  devoid  of  sweetness 
and  charm,  although  these  qualities  are  not  the  flower  of 
their  art,  but  outside  it.  Matteo  in  particular,  the  least 
gifted  of  them,  it  must  be  added,  can  not  resist  the 
Sienese  taste  for  loveliness.  But  when  most  himself, 
although  he  has  neither  the  vigour  nor  the  rigour  of 
the  others,  he,  too,  presents  figures  contorted  with 
vehemence,  claw-handed  and  haughty,  in  landscapes  as 
jagged  as  the  debris  of  an  avalanche,  or  in  a  setting  of 
massive,  crowded,  piled-up  architecture. 

Unfortunately  I  cannot  refer  the  reader  to  any  book 
where  even  the  principal  works  of  Matteo  are  repro- 
duced, for  Venturi's  Storia,  which  gives  us  in  black  and 
white  nearly  every  Ferrarese  picture  of  the  slightest 
interest  (Vol.  VII,  part  3),  has  only  two  or  three  cuts 
after  paintings  supposed  to  be  by  Matteo,  one  of  which, 
however,  is  not  by  him  but  by  his  follower,  Guidoccio 
Cozzarelli  (Vol.  VII,  part  i,  figure  283 — Figure  49 

65 


in  this  volume).  As  I  cannot  offer  a  sheaf  of  illustra- 
tions, I  shall  mention  only  pictures  that  are  well  known 
and  easily  accessible  in  photographs. 

Take,  for  instance,  his  four  versions  of  that  singu- 
larly popular  theme  in  Sienese  painting,  the  "Massacre 
of  the  Innocents"  (Figure  32).  All  strike  us  by  the 
exasperation  of  ferocity  and  suffering,  the  tragic 
cruelty,  the  contorted  features,  iron  hands,  and  flinty 
figures  that  are  so  familiar  to  us  now  in  Tura  and  Cossa 
and  Ercole  Roberti.  The  modelling,  although  much 
flatter,  means  to  be  as  unyieldingly  firm,  and  succeeds 
in  being  almost  as  hard ;  the  definition  is  as  cutting,  and 
the  colour,  as  among  certain  followers  of  Cossa  and 
Tura  (like  the  painter  of  the  Gozzadini  profiles,  for 
instance,  now  in  the  Lehman  Collection,  New  York 
{Storia  VII,  3,^  Figures  486,  487) ,  has  a  curious  resem- 
blance to  tarnished  old  brass.  The  architecture  might 
almost  be  Ferrarese,  flint-edged  and  over-loaded, 
deeply  recessed,  richly  coffered,  encrusted  with  bas-re- 
liefs and  charged  with  grotesque  decoration, — in  brief, 
a  delightful  bu|:  puerile  revel  of  orders  and  ornaments, 
very  unlike  the  severely  intellectual  building  of  other 
Tuscans.  It  will  suffice  to  ask  the  reader  to  compare 
these  four  designs  of  Matteo  with  Tura's  altarpieces  in 
the  London  National  Gallery,  and  in  Berlin,  with  his 
^^Annunciation"  in  the  Ferrara  Cathedral  best  of  all, 
for  our  purposes  (Figure  33),  or  with  Cossa's  works 
at  Bologna  and  in  the  Vatican  (Figures  40,  42,  43), 
and  with  Ercole's  in  the  Brera.  Or  take  another  mas- 
terpiece of  Matteo's,  the  "St  Jerome"  of  the  Fogg  Mu- 
seum at  Cambridge,  Mass.    (Figure  34).     Although 

66 


»  »  », 
»  »  » 
»      »   » 


»   ■»•».»-.»», 


Fig.  32.     AIatteo  di  Giovanni:  AIassacke  of  the  Innocents 
S.    Agostino,    Siena 


J  >      >'      5       5        0       J 

O  J      0    '    J       J  »  , 

J  J         )  >       >  •>  > 


)J>)JJ  ""l 


J    ;    1     '    > 


5     J    »     '    1 


Fig.  ss.    Tura  :  Annunciation 

Cathedral,  Ferrara 


'^    ,   ^  ,     ^  5         •)  ,      J  3 

"'  5  5         J     >  -      3    >     '    O 


Fig.  34.     Matteo  di  Giovanni:  St.  Jerome 

Fogg  Museum,  Cambridge,   U.  S.  A. 


obviously  suggested  by  Ghirlandaio's  and  Botticelli's 
frescoes,  in  the  Ognissanti  of  Florence,  it  recalls  Tura 
and  Cossa,  not  only  by  its  grandeur  and  virility,  its 
nervous  energy,  and  its  extreme  definition,  but  by  the 
architecture  v^ith  its  careful  indications  of  masonry, 
and  by  the  accessories,  such  as  the  coral  rosary  sus- 
pended from  the  wall.  Then,  who  else  in  Tuscany 
would  have  painted  a  lion  so  like  those  springs  of  vital 
energy,  the  lions  of  Tura,  and  of  his  model  the  sublime 
Lion  of  St.  Mark's?  Who  but  Matteo  in  Tuscany  has 
types  as  haughty  as  his  '^Madonna  della  Neve,"  or  the 
^'Magdalen"  in  his  S.  Domenico  altarpiece,  or  land- 
scapes so  strange,  so  lunar  and  so  gem-like  as  the  one 
in  that  fascinating  pattern  of  colour  and  line,  his  "As- 
sumption," now  in  the  London  National  Gallery?  To 
find  their  nearest  parallels  we  again  must  approach  the 
paintings  of  Tura  and  Cossa  and  Ercole  and  their  near- 
est followers.^ 

These  parallels  and  resemblances  between  Matteo 
and  his  Ferrarese  contemporaries  are  not  necessarily 
the  result  of  mere  accident.  They  may  be  due  to  more 
than  the  hazard  of  kindred  temperaments  in  similar 
stages  of  development,  for,  as  we  remember,  all  these 
painters  were  striving,  if  not  to  be  realists,  naturalists 
and  scientists  themselves,  at  least  to  profit  by  the  efforts 
of  the  artists  who  were.  It  is  possible  that  Matteo  had 
come  into  personal  touch  with  Tura  and  Cossa,  for 
even  in  the  Fifteenth  Century  people  were  not  quite 

3  One  of  the  closest  parallels  between  Matteo  and  any  of  this  group  is 
furnished  by  the  mysterious  author  of  the  captivating  Ferrarese  picture  at 
Faenza  ascribed  to  Scaletti.  Another  close  parallel  is  with  Bianchi  (see 
Venturi's  Storia  VII,  3,  figs.  799-804). 

67 


as  limited  in  their  movements  as  pumpkins.  What  at 
any  rate  is  fairly  secure,  is  that  they  all  came  under  the 
influence  of  the  great  Florentines,  whether  Donatello 
and  Castagno  and  Pollajuolo,  or  Uccello  and  Piero 
della  Francesco.  It  is  not  necessary  to  prove  this  state- 
ment in  so  far  as  the  Ferrarese  are  concerned,  for  it  has 
been  amply  and  even  more  than  amply  acknowledged. 
As  for  Matteo,  his  indebtedness  to  Pollajuolo,  who  in  a 
sense  resumes  his  own  and  his  preceding  generation,  is 
not  only  manifest  more  or  less  everywhere,  but  in  his 
greatest  achievement,  the  ^'Massacre  of  the  Innocents" 
on  the  pavement  of  the  Siena  Cathedral,  the  friezes  in 
the  cornice,  if  we  had  them  separately  and  unclassified, 
would  by  miracle  only  have  escaped  attribution  to  the 
Florentine. 

There  was,  however,  still  another  link  between  the 
Sienese  and  Tura,  Cossa  and  Ercole.  The  last  were 
essentially  the  product  of  that  extraordinary  archaeo- 
logical, scientific  and  naturalistic  movement  at  Padua 
connected  with  the  name  of  Squarcione.  Another 
product  of  the  same  movement,  Girolamo  da  Cremona, 
appeared  in  the  Sienese  as  early  as  1467,  and  remained 
there  long  enough  to  leave  a  marked  impression  upon 
all  the  abler  painters  of  that  region,  but  on  none  so 
much  as  on  Matteo.^     To  study  this  in  detail  would 

*In  Berlin  a  predella  by  Girolamo  (No.  1655)  representing  "the  Healing 
of  the  Cripple"  is  catalogued  as  "Manner  of  Francesco  di  Giorgio."  We 
scarcely  expect  delicate  connoisseurship  from  the  art-corporals  of  Potsdam, 
so  that  their  attribution  is  a  tribute  to  the  influence  exercised  by  the 
Cremonese  upon  Cecco  di  Giorgio.  His  influence  on  Neroccio  is  most 
clearly  manifested  in  the  wonderful  predella  of  the  Uffizi,  wherein,  indeed, 
the  city  square,  with  its  crowded  buildings  and  massive  architecture,  sug- 
gests Girolamo  and  at  the  same  time  furnishes  a  close  and  interesting 
parallel  to  the  one  in  our  Salver    (Fig.  35). 

68 


take  us  too  far  from  our  present  purpose,  and  besides, 
once  pointed  out,  it  is  so  patent  that  the  reader  will 
prefer  to  make  the  detailed  comparisons  for  himself. 
In  a  general  way  it  may  be  said  that  vaguely  in  certain 
of  his  Madonnas,  more  clearly  in  some  of  his  children, 
but  most  decidedly  in  his  architecture,  with  its  curious 
Mantegnesque  features  and  its  great  precision  of  line, 
the  influence  of  Girolamo  da  Cremona  is  manifest. 

Admitting  these  parallels  and  resemblances,  which 
nowadays  we  can  study  so  minutely  in  accurate  and  de- 
tailed reproductions,  it  is  scarcely  surprising  that  a 
student  who  saw  this  ^'Solomon  and  the  Queen  of 
Sheba"  more  than  twenty  years  ago,  should  have  got 
the  impression  that  it  was  by  Matteo.  Now  he  sees 
that  despite  the  haughtiness  or  archness  of  the  women, 
the  hardness  of  the  modelling,  the  sharpness  of  the  sil- 
houettes, despite  the  architecture  and  the  landscape,  the 
resemblance  to  Matteo's  style  is  only  generic;  for  now 
he,  like  every  other  student,  has  access  to  photographs 
to  confirm  or  contradict  his  impressions,  and  is  no 
longer  led  astray  by  the  glamour  of  his  adventure  to 
see  the  Quattrocento  Sienese  wherever  possible,  as  if 
there  were  a  mirage  coming  between  him  and  a  certain 
type  of  picture.  That  this  happened  in  those  early 
days  is  not  surprising,  for  it  is  notorious  how  by  the 
constitution  not  only  of  our  minds  but  of  our  very  in- 
struments of  vision,  we  are  led  to  find  everywhere  the 
images  that  are  absorbing  our  attention.  This  is  per- 
haps the  chief  reason  why,  as  was  said  by  the  Gon- 
courts:  '^Seeing  is  the  most  difficult  to  acquire  of  all 
the  arts." 

69 


Another  and  final  excuse  for  the  student  of  more  than 
twenty  years  ago  was  that  the  boundaries  of  the  schools 
were  far  from  being  as  settled  and  established  as  they 
are  now.  (Would  that  those  of  Europe  were  in  as  little 
need  of  rectification  in  this  Dies  Irae  of  1917!)  Let 
alone  the  Sienese,  whom  we  were  only  beginning  to 
know,  even  the  Ferrarese,  although  they  already  had 
been  worked  over  by  Morelli,  Frizzoni  and  Venturi, 
were  still  suffering  from  vagueness  of  frontiers  (and  no 
wonder,  for  no  other  school  was  situated  to  receive 
more  varied  influences) .  The  work  that  has  been  done 
since,  to  set  things  straight,  has  been  decisive.  It  is 
chiefly  due  to  Venturi  and  to  the  opposition  he  has  stim- 
ulated ;  and  one  who  is  acquainted  with  the  "literature" 
of  the  subject  knows  what  changes,  what  fluctuations, 
what  operations  have  been  necessary  in  order  to  attain 
the  knowledge  now  acquired.  It  is  no  longer  permis- 
sible, for  instance,  to  discuss,  as  was  done  only  ten  years 
ago,  whether  the  Morelli  "Evangelist"  (Venturi, 
Storia  VII,  3,  Figure  496)  and  the  Dublin  "Portrait 
of  a  Lute  Player"  {ibid,  Figure  410)  are  Florentine  or 
Ferrarese. 

Ill 

Error  is  never  excusable,  but  there  are  times  when 
it  is  hard  to  avoid.  Of  this  nature,  not  easy  to  avoid, 
was  the  error  of  ascribing  to  Matteo  di  Giovanni 
the  Salver  recently  acquired  by  the  Boston  Museum  of 
Fine  Arts.  Nowadays,  however,  there  is  no  reason 
save  ignorance,  incompetence  and  haste,  to  confound 
Matteo  with  the  Ferrarese.     And  yet,  as  we  have  seen, 

70 


he  was  singularly  and  confusingly  like  them,  more,  all 
considered,  than  any  other  painter  south  of  the  Apen- 
nines. Like  them  he  was,  I  repeat,  an  artist  with  cer- 
tain naturalistic,  realistic,  scientific  and  archaeological 
interests.  But  if  there  be  one  painter  of  any  fame,  who 
for  an  Italian  and  a  contemporary  had  less  resemblance 
to  these  Ferrarese  than  another,  it  was  Boccatis  of  Cam- 
erino.  How  it  is  possible  nowadays,  with  all  that  even 
the  casual  person  can  learn  of  Italian  art,  to  confound 
a  work  of  such  advanced  Renaissance  character,  of  such 
severe,  clean-cut  contours,  of  such  pride  and  distinc- 
tion, as  this  ''Solomon  and  Queen  of  Sheba"  with  the 
quaint  prettiness,  amusing  puerilities  and  general  in- 
decision of  a  Boccatis,  it  is  not  easy  to  understand.  If 
he  recalls  any  painters  of  the  north,  it  is  neither  Tura, 
nor  Cossa  nor  Ercole  nor  any  follower  of  theirs,  but, 
to  a  curious  degree,  the  Emilian  painters  of  a  previous 
generation,  more  his  own  contemporaries  in  every  sense 
of  the  word,  Angelo  and  Bartolommeo  degli  Erri  of 
Modena  (Venturi's  Storia,  VII,  3,  Figures  784-788). 
Earlier  in  this  article  we  compared  the  scientific,  nat- 
uralistic, archaeological  artists  to  souls  in  purgatory. 
Following  out  the  comparison,  Boccatis  and  his  kin- 
dred the  world  over  may  be  well  described  as  souls  in 
limbo.  They  are  innocent,  they  are  attractive;  they 
do  not  distress  us  with  the  sight  of  struggle  and  strife, 
failure  and  filth.  They  will  never  grow  up.  They  re- 
main children,  and  when  no  longer  quite  that,  they 
amuse  and  touch  us  as  do  cretins  of  the  Val  d'Aosta,  and 
their  more  pretentious  kindred  of  a  certain  island  in  the 
sea  who  are,  I  fancy,  the  last  survivors  of  more  playful, 

71 


less  responsible  races  that  have  disappeared  before 
more  rational,  and  more  highly  organized,  and  mechan- 
ized civilizations. 

Boccatis  never  outgrew  the  Transitional  pre-scien- 
tific  stage  of  painting  so  delightfully  represented  in  the 
North  by  the  Limbourgs  and  their  followers,  the  paint- 
ers of  Cologne,  and  in  the  South  by  Gentile  da  Fa- 
briano,  Pisanello  and  their  numerous  peers  and  pupils. 
Only  that  Boccatis,  who,  although  he  lived  to  about 
1480,  never  showed  the  least  comprehension  of  the  New 
Age,  could  not  help  picking  up  some  of  its  bye-prod- 
ucts, which  he  uses  as  intelligently  as  an  amiable  sav- 
age might  the  braces  and  cravat  left  behind  by  some 
European  explorer.  In  his  picture  at  Ajaccio  he 
paints  a  dome,  but  its  relation  to  the  dome  in  our  Salver 
is  about  the  same  as  that  we  may  find  in  some  debased 
coin  of  the  Sixth  or  Seventh  Century  compared  with 
the  one  on  the  medal  struck  in  honour  of  Bramante. 
When  he  employs  columns  and  cornices  of  the  new 
shape,  he  shows  no  understanding  of  and  betrays  no 
interest  in  their  structure,  and  as  a  rule  his  proportions 
remain  frail,  pulled-out  and  Gothic  (Figure  36). 
When  he  attempts  the  nude,  as  at  S.  Maria  di  Seppio, 
near  Camerino,  it  is  clear  that  he  has  never  even 
thought  of  drawing  it  from  nature.  Of  his  line  and 
of  his  draperies,  all  that  can  be  said  is  that  they  are 
disarmingly  innocent;  while  as  for  his  modelling,  it 
seldom  gets  beyond  rouging  the  cheek-bones  and 
smudging  the  hollows. 

To  do  him  full  justice,  I  am  going  to  acquaint  my 
readers  with  two  pictures  of  his,  probably  unknown  to 

72 


tn 


M       "to 

U    CQ 
O 

CQ 


Fig.  yj-     BoccATis  :  Madonna 

Former  Schwartz  Collection,   Vienna 


them,  which  show  him  in  a  more  advanced  phase  than 
any  likely  to  be  known  to  them.  One  of  them, 
a  "Madonna,"  when  I  saw  it  more  than  ten  years  ago, 
was  for  sale  at  Vienna;  the  other,  a  "Sposalizio,"  for- 
merly in  the  Butler  Collection,  now  belongs  to  me. 

The  Madonna  (Figure  37)  is  represented  as  seen  in 
connection  with  a  Renaissance  niche.  Just  what  the 
connection  is  I  cannot  conclude,  for  if  you  do  not  look 
at  the  ledge  she  seems  to  be  in  front  of  the  columns,  and 
if  you  look  at  the  ledge  you  must  acknowledge  that  the 
painter  meant  her  to  remain  well  behind  them.  Now 
compare  this  with  the  planes  in  our  Salver,  where  each 
figure  so  consistently  keeps  its  own.  Then  the  niche 
itself — the  members  are  Renaissance  enough  but  the 
cornice  does  not  rest  on  the  columns,  while  these  with 
their  capitals  project  by  their  whole  diameter  beyond 
it,  and  their  bases  are  out  of  all  possible  perspective. 
Coming  to  the  construction  of  the  Virgin's  face,  it  is 
better  than  any  other  of  his  known  to  me,  but  how 
naive,  how  uncertain  beside  anything  in  our  "Solomon 
and  the  Queen  of  Sheba."  Then  the  Child — what  an 
unarticulated  nude,  what  a  puffed-out  mask,  what  a 
stiff  torso  and  what  boneless  limbs  he  has,  when  judged 
by  the  science  displayed  in  the  winged  boy  on  the  back 
of  our  Salver! 

The  "Sposalizio"  (Figure  38)  is  even  more  interest- 
ing, because  the  subject  lends  itself,  as  a  composition, 
to  a  design  almost  identical  with  the  "Meeting  of  Solo- 
mon and  the  Queen  of  Sheba."'  Boccatis  is  here  not 
only  fresh  and  attractive  but  in  every  way  a  more  mod- 
ern artist  than  he  is  elsewhere.     No  wonder  this  panel 

73 


used  to  be  attributed  to  the  school  of  Angelico,  for  the 
high  priest  and  the  Virgin  vaguely  recall  that  great  and 
exquisite  artist,  and  much  else  in  the  composition  sug- 
gests Florence.  The  architecture  shows  Boccatis  in  his 
most  advanced  phase  and  so  does  the  drawing.  And 
nevertheless  it  is  rustic  simplicity  itself,  candid,  naive, 
and  unambitious,  when  considered  in  the  light  of  all  the 
scientific,  naturalistic  and  archaeological  problems  the 
author  of  our  Salver  sets  himself  and  solves. 

With  the  best  will  in  the  world  I  do  not  succeed  in 
discovering  any  even  intelligible  reason  for  ascribing 
this  work  to  Boccatis,  nor  can  I  see  anything  specific 
that  he  has  in  common  with  the  author  of  this  work, 
except  that  the  winged  putto  on  its  back,  and  the  Chil- 
dren in  some  of  Boccatis'  "Madonnas"  wear  on  their 
breasts  a  bit  of  coral.  This  charm  against  the  Evil 
Eye  was,  however,  pretty  universally  worn  by  children 
in  Italy,  and  frequently  even  by  the  God-Child! 

It  is  distressing  to  have  said  hard  things  of  the  ami- 
able Boccatis.  As  a  school  boy  I  adored  lopas,  the 
court  cosmographer  of  Queen  Dido,  and  I  still  worship 
Lucretius.  Yet  if  any  one  were  to  maintain  that  they 
had  invented  the  systems  of  Newton  and  Laplace,  and 
if,  in  order  to  prove  the  absurdity  of  the  claim,  I  had 
to  show  how  pre-scientific  these  ancients  were,  the  fault 
would  not  be  mine  but  his  who  made  such  a  ridiculous 
declaration.  To  compare  small  with  great,  that  is  the 
case  with  Boccatis  and  the  author  of  the  Salver  at  the 
Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts.  Even  the  remote  and 
inaccessible  mountain  region  lying  between  Umbria 
and  the  Marches  whence  he  came,  backward  though  it 

74 


remained  throughout  the  entire  Renaissance,  produced 
during  that  period  no  other  artist  so  backward.  I  will 
not  speak  of  a  later  contemporary  like  Lorenzo  di  Ales- 
sandro  of  San  Severino,  but  surely,  if  we  were  limited 
to  that  region,  his  own  townsman  Girolamo  di  Gio- 
vanni, or  Antonio  or  Francesco  di  Gentile  of  the 
neighbouring  Fabriano,  would  be  far  less  unsuitable 
candidates  than  he  for  the  honour  of  having  painted 
our  Salver. 

IV 

There  is  thus  not  only  no  excuse  but  no  explana- 
tion for  making,  at  this  date,  an  attribution  which 
is  as  wrong  from  the  point  of  view  of  learning  as  it  is 
from  the  point  of  view  of  aesthetic  appreciation.  But 
let  us  now  leave  behind  us  both  the  comprehensible 
error  of  having  more  than  twenty  years  ago  ascribed 
this  Salver  to  Matteo,  and  the  absurdity  of  attributing 
it  now,  in  the  full  light  of  our  knowledge,  to  Boccatis. 
We  are  ready  for  the  last  lap  of  our  road — it  has  been 
tedious  enough,  I  fear — which  will  consist  of  the  at- 
tempt to  demonstrate  that  its  real  author  must  have 
been  an  artist  very  close  to  Cossa.  Now  that  we  have 
cleared  away  the  rubbish  heaps  that  have  barred  the 
path — how  much  one  might  achieve  if  one  did  not  have 
to  waste  so  much  of  life  carting  away  the  rubbish  piled 
up  by  oneself  and  others! — the  task  will  be  neither 
very  long  nor  very  difficult.  The  only  difficulty,  in- 
deed, arises  from  the  sheer  obviousness  of  the  conclu- 
sion, for  to  "tell  the  clock  by  algebra"  is  not  quite  as 
easy  as  it  is  superfluous. 

75 


The  character  of  the  artist  is  already  known  to  us, 
and  I  need  not  make  yet  another  attempt  to  define  it. 
Besides,  as  I  might  be  suspected  of  being  prejudiced  by 
the  case  I  am  now  pleading,  I  am  happy  to  be  able  to 
refer  the  reader  to  the  pages  I  wrote  of  Tura,  and  Cossa 
and  Ercole  in  my  "North  Italian  Painters"  eleven 
years  ago.  Those  pages  with  slight  changes  apply  to 
the  painter  of  this  Salver  as  well,  for  he  is  very  close 
to  all  of  them.  But  as  he  is  nearly  the  peer  of  the  first 
two,  we  shall  not  expect  his  designs  to  be  composed  of 
bits  plagiarized  from  them.  This  kind  of  craftsman 
is  the  cheap  and  easy  connoisseur's  delight,  but  the  real 
artist  works  only  in  the  spirit  of  a  school,  and  the 
resemblances  between  him  and  his  fellows  are  not  like 
those  obtaining  between  silver  pieces  of  the  same  de- 
nomination coined  in  the  same  year  in  the  same  mint. 

We  shall  begin  with  the  architecture.  Although  I 
cannot  resist  the  impression  that  it  was  inspired  by  Leo 
Battista  Alberti  and  that  the  temple  of  Solomon  may 
be  reminiscent  of  S.  Andrea  at  Mantua  or  of  some 
scheme  for  the  completion  of  that  sublime  artist's  mas- 
ter-work at  Rimini — to  me,  mere  fragment  though  it 
is,  the  most  fascinating,  the  most  satisfactory,  and  the 
most  typical  building  of  the  whole  Quattrocento — 
nevertheless,  I  can  not  help  discovering  the  Northerner 
in  general  and  the  Ferrarese  in  particular  in  the  pro- 
portions. We  see  it  in  the  breadth  of  the  door,  in  the 
heaviness  and  elaboration  of  the  cornice,  in  the  narrow 
parallel  arches,^  in  the  drum  over  the  choir  and  in  the 
apses  of  the  transept,  in  the  volute  and  beans  and  pen- 

'^  So  frequently  depicted  in  Venice  by  the  Vivarini. 

76 


dent  beads  over  the  corner  of  the  choir  facade,  in  the 
children  over  the  door  of  the  temple  passing  a  string 
of  beads  to  each  other,  in  the  careful  indication  of  each 
block  of  the  masonry,  and  in  the  ruined  or  unfinished 
wall  above  to  the  right.  Many  of  these  are  ordinary 
Squarcionesque  properties,  modified  and  reduced  to  his 
purpose  by  the  real  artist  that  the  author  of  this  design 
must  have  been.  To  avoid  the  tedious  repetition  of  the 
verb  "compare"  I  invite  the  student  to  look  through  the 
illustrations  to  Tura,  Cossa  and  their  followers,  as  well 
as  of  their  Squarcionesque  precursors  and  fellow-pu- 
pils,   that    are    to    be    found    in    Venturi's    ''Storia* 

(VII,  3). 
A  word  next  about  the  landscape.     It  is  the  bare 

flinty  almost  lunar  world  with  which  Ferrarese  art,  in 

this  respect,  as  in  others,  intensifying  and  over-defining 

the  Squarcionesque  formula,  has  made  us  familiar. 

And  now  for  the  figures :  the  women  so  haughty,  so 
spirited,  and  so  arch;  the  men  a  little  stiffer  and  more 
ordinary  but  all  tense — like  children  of  the  Renais- 
sance with  no  Medieval  vagueness  or  dreaminess 
clinging  to  them — you  will  encounter  their  like  more 
or  less  anywhere  in  the  still  extant  paintings  of  Tura, 
Cossa  and  their  close  followers.  Only  that  our  author, 
as  compared  with  the  masters  themselves,  gains  in  ele- 
gance and  daintiness  what  he  loses  in  substance  and 
energy :  for  he  is  far  thinner,  and  instead  of  exaggerat- 
ing the  round  as  they  do,  he  tends  to  the  silhouette. 

Allowing  for  the  differences  just  indicated,  we  find 
abundant  parallels  to  his  figures  among  the  paintings 
of  the  Quattrocento  Ferrarese,  Cossa  chiefly.     It  nat- 

77 


urally  will  occur  to  everybody  to  search  for  resem- 
blances among  the  numberless  personages  in  the  Schi- 
fanoja  Frescoes,  and  no  one  who  looks  will  be  disap- 
pointed, particularly  with  regard  to  the  women. 
Translated  into  a  heartier,  quainter  type,  they  occur 
constantly;  but  in  the  one  fragment  that  I  believe  to 
have  been  painted  by  Cossa  himself,  representing  a 
Race,  the  ladies  looking  on  are  as  exquisite  as  in  our 
composition,  and  besides  wear  the  almost  identical 
dresses  (Figure  39).  Similar  women  occur  again  in 
another  autograph  work  of  Cossa's,  the  Vatican 
predella  (Figure  40),  where  the  one  to  the  left,  wear- 
ing an  apron,  so  closely  resembles  in  everything  except 
expression  and  head-dress  the  one  on  the  extreme  left 
in  the  Salver.  The  two  youths  whom  we  see  convers- 
ing by  the  door  of  the  temple  are  closely  matched  in 
the  Schifanoja  fresco  of  the  "Triumph  of  Venus,"  par- 
ticularly in  the  one  so  charmingly  embracing  his  love 
(Figure  41).  And  as  for  the  silhouette  of  the  young 
man  standing  in  the  middle  distance  with  his  arms 
akimbo,  his  short  jacket,  tight-fitting  hose  and  rat- tail 
feet,  in  the  very  attitude  and  aspect  of  a  "nut"  from  the 
Court  of  Charles  the  Bold,  he  amounts  to  a  sign  man- 
ual of  Cossa  and  his  following.  Look  once  more,  for 
instance,  at  the  other  sections  of  Cossa's  predella  in  the 
Vatican  (Figures  42  and  43).® 

Coming  to  minuter  details,  it  will  have  been  noticed 
that  several  of  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  wear  elabo- 

*In  Central  Italy  to  my  recollection  this  exact  species  of  Burgundian 
**nut"  occurs  only  in  the  S.  Bernardino  panels  at  Perugia,  and  with  especial 
fidelity,  in  the  one  representing  the  "Revival  of  a  Dead  Child"  (Venturi, 
Storia,  VII,  a,  fig.  362). 

78 


1      >35,',      ' 


»  '    J      »  »  IP 


»,»  r*, »  » 


Fig.  44.     CossA :  The  Baptist 
Brera,  Milan 


^  5       5  3 


c  tec  c  5  ^f  r 


Fig.  45.     Close  follower  of  Tura  and  Cossa  :  A  Bishop 

Collection    of    the   late    Tlieo.    M.   Davis,    Newport.    U.    S.    A. 


Fig.  46.     CossA  Studio:  The  Triumphal  Car  of  Minerva 

Part   of   a   Fresco   in   Schifanoia   Palace.   Ferrara 


rately  folded  turbans.  Now  the  turban  was  much  af- 
fected in  and  near  Venetia.  Cossa's  Vatican  predella 
shows  a  number.  Girolamo  da  Cremona,  too,  affects 
them,  and  handed  on  the  taste  for  them  to  Matteo  di 
Giovanni,  who  uses  them  frequently.  Another  detail 
is  not  without  interest.  The  beards  are  combed  so  as 
to  curl  in  from  each  side  toward  the  middle.  It  is  a 
rare  enough  fashion  to  deserve  mention,  and  I  doubt 
whether  it  occurs  in  Central  Italy.  Cossa's  "Baptist" 
(now  in  the  Brera)  shows  it  exaggerated  to  two  cork- 
screws (Figure  44). 

The  draperies,  as  best  seen  in  the  Queen  of  Sheba, 
tend,  as  in  Tura  and  Cossa,  to  cling  to  the  salient  parts 
of  the  figure,  which  it  is  their  function  to  render  as 
firm  and  hard  as  flint.  A  good  parallel  is  furnished  by 
the  painting  of  a  Bishop  due  to  some  close  follower  of 
Tura  and  Cossa  in  the  collection  of  the  late  Mr.  Theo. 
M.  Davis  of  Newport,  R.  I.  (Figure  45) . 

Now  I  have  to  speak  of  the  three  children  over  the 
door  of  the  temple,  and  of  the  winged  small  boy  on  the 
back  of  the  Salver,  and  then  my  tale  will  be  told. 

The  three  children  are  of  the  same  sturdy,  chunky 
kind,  of  nearly  the  same  type,  expression  and  propor- 
tions that  we  find  in  numbers  among  the  S'chifanoja 
frescoes,  particularly  those  on  the  triumphal  car  of 
Minerva  (Figure  46),  and  the  half  frightened  crea- 
tures attending  the  "Triumph  of  Apollo"  (Figure  47). 
In  Cossa's  autograph  works,  as  in  the  Vatican  predella 
(Figure  40),  we  find  a  type  that  is  almost  identical."^ 

■^  Compare   also  the  children   on   the   pediment  of  the  throne   in   Tura's 
Berlin  altarpiece    (Venturi's  Storia,  VII,  3,  fig.   396). 

79 


And  the  resemblances  are  not  less  with  the  winged  boy 
holding  the  cornucopias.  I  can  but  express  astonish- 
ment that  at  this  day  any  one  should  fail  to  recognize  at 
a  glance  the  Tura-Cossesque  character  of  his  squarish 
face,  his  sturdy  build,  the  shape  of  his  ear.  The  cornu- 
copias have  mouldings  of  the  precise  and  severe  kind 
found  among  all  the  Squarcioneschi.  An  interesting 
parallel  to  these  mouldings  may  be  seen  in  the  throne  of 
Tura's  National  Gallery  Virgin  Annunciate  (Figure 

48). 

I  wish  I  could  go  further,  and  say  more  about  the 
artist  who  painted  this  beautiful  Salver.  But  as  yet  I 
do  not  know  who  he  is,  and  I  am  not  sure  that  I  am 
acquainted  with  any  other  work  by  him.  I  have  my 
suspicions,  and  if  they  are  realized,  then  there  will  be 
another  article  about  the  author  of  this  masterpiece. 


80 


Fig.  48.     TuRA  :  Virgin  Annunciate 
National  Gallery,  London 


GUIDOCCIO    COZZARELLI    AND    MATTEO 
DI  GIOVANNI 

WHEN  a  new  taste  takes  possession  of  us,  the  en- 
thusiasm and  glamour  it  engenders  towards 
everything  within  its  field  blind  us  to  distinctions.  At 
first  it  is  the  kind,  the  class,  the  type  that  attract.  Only 
when  the  romance  of  novelty  has  vanished  does  the  dif- 
ficult art  of  seeing  come  into  play,  training  its  adepts 
little  by  little  to  the  less  facile  and  overwhelming,  but 
more  virile  and  intellectual  satisfaction  derived  from 
the  exercise  of  the  critical  faculties. 

During  the  last  fifty  years,  taste  has  successively  dis- 
covered or  rediscovered  many  manifestations  of  art: — 
Assyrian,  Japanese,  Early  Egyptian,  Early  Babylonian, 
Cretan,  Chinese  before  Ming,  Earlier  Islamitic  and 
medieval  Persian,  Indian  and  Khmer  before  1600,  not 
to  speak  of  barbarous  or  barbarized  arts  like  Scythian, 
Sassanian,  those  of  the  Runic  North  and  those  of  Cen- 
tral America,  of  our  own  earlier  Middle  Ages,  the 
savage  arts  of  Africa  and  of  the  South  Seas,  or  the 
Magdelenian  marvels  of  Southern  France  and  adjacent 
Spain. 

Although  the  arts  of  the  Italian  Quattrocento  were 
never  quite  so  forgotten  or  unknown  as  these,  yet,  with 
a  few  rare  exceptions,  they  were  little  appreciated. 

81 


Thus,  in  the  Napoleonic  years,  although  the  interest  in 
them  was  already  reviving,  a  Guercino  was  valued  at 
30,000,  a  Baroccio  at  45,000  and  a  Carracci  at  100,000 
francs,  but  a  Botticelli  at  only  1500  francs. 

What  a  Sienese  painter  would  have  fetched  we  do 
not  know,  for  the  reason,  apparently,  that  the  question 
never  came  up.  Little  over  a  hundred  years  ago,  the 
pre-historic  frescoes  in  the  cave  of  Altamira  were 
scarcely  less  present  in  the  minds  of  people  than  the 
master-pieces  of  the  Sienese  fifteenth  century.  No 
other  of  the  great  Italian  schools  took  so  long  coming 
to  its  own.  This  event  is,  in  fact,  so  recent  that  we 
have  scarcely  recovered  from  the  ^'wild  surmise"  which 
possesses  the  mind  of  the  pioneer  or  conquistador  even 
in  minimis.  The  more  creditable  then,  that  we  are 
already  beginning  to  train  our  eyes  to  distinguish  deli- 
cate differences  not  only  of  kind  but  of  quality.  No 
longer  for  us  is  every  Neroccio,  every  Matteo,  every 
Benvenuto  of  equal  value,  as  is  every  Rembrandt  for 
the  recent  converts  from  the  adoration  of  Jahve  to  the 
worship  of  Wotan.  We  begin  to  employ,  in  the  new 
field  of  Sienese  art,  the  methods  that  have  in  the  last 
generation  proved  so  successful  in  other  schools  of  art 
scholarship,  attempting  to  discern  where  the  hand  of 
the  apprentice  betrays  itself,  venturing  even  to  dis- 
criminate where  it  worked  under  the  master's  strict 
control,  and  where  in  free-handed  imitation. 

Students  of  other  recently  discovered  manifestations 
of  art,  if  they  did  not  ignore  our  activities,  might  well 
envy  us.  For  we  enjoy  an  advantage  over  them,  in  that 
we  have  the  lead  and  spur  of  personality  to  stimulate 

82 


and  direct  us.  Every  artistic  personality  tends  like  a 
magnet  to  attract,  and  repels  with  a  force  almost  as 
mysterious.  In  the  impersonal  epochs,  that  inspiration 
is  wanting,  and  enthusiasm,  instead  of  being  succeeded 
by  careful  and  considered  sifting,  is  apt  to  be  followed 
by  a  neglect  which  buries  the  masterpieces  along  with 
the  rubbish. 

This  misfortune  is  much  less  likely  to  overwhelm  the 
more  recent  arts  in  which  dominating  figures  are  read- 
ily discovered.  All  that  is  needed  is,  as  it  were,  to  free 
them  from  the  various  parasitical  and  dependent 
growths  which  hide  their  clear  aspect.  The  task  is 
thus  an  inspiring  one  to  which  I  always  turn  with  pleas- 
ure. In  the  following  pages  I  propose  to  make  an 
effort  to  differentiate  more  clearly  than  has  been  done 
hitherto  between  the  painter  of  widest  range,  greatest 
variety  and  largest  enterprize  of  the  Sienese  Quattro- 
cento— I  mean  Matteo  di  Giovanni — and  his  ablest  ap- 
prentice and  closest  follower,  Guidoccio  Cozzarelli. 

Although  twenty  years  of  study  devoted  to  these  mas- 
ters, their  contemporaries,  and  their  relations  to  each 
other  now  lie  behind  us,  that  time  has  been  none  too 
long  to  bring  us  to  the  point  when  the  attempt  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  one  and  the  other  may  hope  to  be 
successful.  For  it  takes  a  great  deal  of  time  to  settle 
the  confusion  of  judgment  due  to  the  glamour  of  nov- 
elty. Nor  even  then  is  criticism  at  the  end  of  its  diffi- 
culties. When  finally  we  wake  up  to  distinctions  of 
spirit  and  quality  in  the  works  that  a  too  indiscriminate 
enthusiasm  for  a  newly  revealed  artist  has  ascribed  to 
him,  we  are  tempted  to  go  too  far  in  the  opposite  direc- 

83 


tion,  and  to  deny  his  authorship  in  every  creation  that 
stirs  doubt.  But  this  will  not  do.  We  must  wait  at- 
tentively until  his  personality  asserts  itself  and  becomes 
known  to  us  in  all  its  manifestations;  until,  in  other 
words,  by  mental  processes  which  are  nearly  identical 
in  all  higher  scholarship,  we  have  arrived  at  a  canon. 
Then  only  are  we  likely  to  be  right  in  including  or  ex- 
cluding a  given  work  on  account  of  its  inferiority  to, 
or  divergence  from  the  more  frequent  and  constant 
types. 

The  task  of  distinguishing  between  Matteo  and  Coz- 
zarelli  has  not  been  an  easy  one.  It  is  true  that  there 
are  a  certain  number  of  divergences,  but  these  are  so 
subtile  that  they  become  perceptible  only  after  careful 
and  prolonged  attention.  Cozzarelli's  faces,  for  in- 
stance, tend  on  the  one  hand  to  look  sweetish,  or  on  the 
other  to  have  a  haughty  or  even  cruel  expression.  His 
eyes  are  rather  large  and  watery,  and  his  colouring,  less 
fused  than  Matteo's,  is,  to  our  new  sense,  more  vivid  and 
prettier.  But  the  determining  difference  is  one  of 
quality.  Thus,  Cozzarelli's  contours  are  stiffer,  seldom 
rising  above  the  mere  outline ;  his  drawing  is  not  only 
more  incorrect  but  more  relaxed ;  the  folds  of  his  drap- 
eries are  rarely  functional,  and  his  modelling  is  much 
flatter  and  more  schematic.  Were  these  differences 
striking,  we  should  not  have  taken  so  long  to  conclude 
that  some  of  the  pictures  I  shall  now  speak  of  belong 
to  him  and  not  to  Matteo.  The  differences  are  slight, 
but,  if  we  learn  to  distinguish  between  them,  they 
familiarize  us  with  the  peculiarities  of  each,  and  enable 
us  to  make  a  correct  division  of  the  works  of  two  mas- 

84 


Fig.  49.     CozzARELLi :  Madonna  and  Angels 

Collection  of  Mr.  Henry  WaHers,  Baltimore,   U.  S.  A. 


ters  hitherto  confused  to  the  disadvantage  of  both. 
Matteo's  artistic  personality  is  by  now  sufficiently 
well  established  to  require  no  further  characterization 
here.  Besides,  I  have  recently  had  occasion  to  con- 
trast him  with  his  Ferrarese  contemporaries,  which 
gave  an  opportunity  for  insisting  upon  certain  traits 
of  his  style  that  had  not  been  quite  sufficiently  studied.^ 
I  venture,  therefore,  to  assume  adequate  acquaintance 
with  his  art  for  the  purposes  of  this  articule.  It  is 
Cozzarelli  in  the  phases  closest  to  Matteo  whom  we 
shall  seek  to  know  better. 

II 

The  most  interesting  case  is  that  of  the  "Ma- 
donna with  two  Angels"  formerly  in  the  Palmieri- 
Nuti  palace  at  Siena,  and  now  in  the  collection  of 
Mr.  Henry  Walters  of  Baltimore  (Figure  49).  In 
the  exhibition  of  1904  it  was  perhaps  the  most  admired 
of  all  the  "Madonnas"  ascribed  to  Matteo.  Adolfo 
Venturi  reproduces  it  in  his  Storia  as  one  of  the  three 
illustrations  he  devotes  to  that  master ;  and  so  recently 
as  nine  years  ago,  when  I  was  preparing  the  second 
edition  of  my  "Central  Italian  Painters,"  it  had  not  yet 
occurred  to  me  to  doubt  it.  I  am  not  aware  at  the  pres- 
ent moment  that  its  authenticity  has  ever  been  ques- 
tioned. Yet  now  it  suddenly  seems  obvious  that  Coz- 
zarelli painted  it.  As  in  the  case  of  so  many  things 
that  remain  totally  unsuspected  until  the  moment  of 
discovery  comes,  we  can  only  wonder  how  we  failed  to 
see  it  before! 

1  See  in  this  volume  "A  Ferrarese  Marriage-Salver  in  the  Boston  Museum 
of  Fine  Arts." 

85 


It  is,  perhaps,  as  fascinating  as  any  of  Matteb's  pic- 
tures. It  has  charming  pattern  and  pleasing  colour, 
and  the  Madonna  attracts  us  by  a  look  of  distinction, 
of  pride  even,  that  happens  to  be  combined  with  lassi- 
tude and  despondency.  The  Child's  peevish  aspect 
is  so  unexpected  as  to  become  interesting.  The  mood 
these  faces  convey  to  us  resembles  v^hat  w^e  feel  be- 
fore certain  figures  and  compositions  of  Tura,  Cossa 
and  Ercole  of  Ferrara,  although  in  this  instance  we  can 
be  nearly  sure  that  the  designer  had  no  intention  of  com- 
municating any  mood  whatever.  His  purpose  was 
probably  only  the  modest  one  of  imitating  as  best  he 
could  the  Madonnas  that  his  master,  Matteo,  was  paint- 
ing about  1480.  The  effect  of  shrinking  pride  and 
listless  disdain,  with  a  conceivable  turn  for  cruelty,  that 
we  find  in  this  Virgin  and  Child  is  very  likely  acciden- 
tal, due  to  nothing  more  sophisticated  than  the  hard- 
ened and  stiffened  line,  and  flattened  modelling  of  the 
inferior  artist. 

.  Let  us  compare  it  with  the  picture  by  Matteo  which 
of  all  his  extant  works  comes  nearest  to  it,  and  may 
even  have  been  present  before  Cozzarelli  while  design- 
ing it,  the  "Madonna"  at  Percena  (Frontispiece). 
Perhaps  if  this  panel  had  been  shown  at  the  Sienese  ex- 
hibition of  1904  it  would  have  opened  our  eyes  then 
and  there  to  the  differences  between  the  master  and  the 
pupil,  as  indeed,  later  on,  it  was  the  chief  instrument  in 
revealing  them  to  me.  But  at  that  time  it  had  only 
been  discovered  by  that  intrepid  explorer  in  the  field 
of  Sienese  art,  Lucy  Olcott.^     Matteo  never  again  is  so 

2Ras9egna  d'Arte.    May,  1904. 

86 


supple,  so  fluent,  so  graceful,  so  refined  as  in  this  Per- 
cena  "Madonna."  Almost  it  would  seem  as  if  the 
spirit  of  Neroccio  had  breathed  upon  him  and  melted 
him  into  an  unwonted  charm  and  tenderness.  But  im- 
agine the  outlines  sharper,  and  you  quickly  get  the  hard 
lids  and  the  icy  mouth  which  account  for  so  much  of  the 
Madonna's  look  in  the  Cozzarelli.  With  a  modelling 
less  enveloping,  you  translate  the  quite  ordinary  Child 
of  Percena  into  the  sulky  one  here.  With  a  stiffer 
touch,  the  soft  curly  locks  of  the  one  become  the  dry 
wisps  in  the  other.  And  it  is  instructive  to  note  how 
much  more  wooden  are  Cozzarelli's  hands,  although 
so  plainly  modelled  on  Matteo's,  and  how  much  drier 
the  folds  of  his  draperies.  Compare  those  of  the  an- 
gels on  our  left  in  each  of  the  pictures. 

At  this  point  the  objection  may  be  made  that  while 
the  inferiority  of  the  one  painting  to  the  other  suffices 
to  prove  that  they  could  not  have  been  by  the  same 
hand,  it  does  not  yet  follow  that  the  harder,  more  rigid 
picture  is  by  Cozzarelli,  and  not  by  some  other  follower 
of  Matteo,  like  Pacchiarotto,  Pietro  di  Domenico,  An- 
drea di  Nicolo,  or  some  quite  nameless  person. 

The  answer  is  easy.  None  of  the  artists  just  men- 
tioned stand  so  close  to  Matteo  as  does  Cozzarelli  here 
and  ever5rwhere  else.  Furthermore,  apart  from  the 
many  works  that  have  been  ascribed  to  him,  we  have  a 
number  which  are  authenticated  by  signatures,  docu- 
ments, or  unbroken  tradition.  We  thus  are  able  to 
distinguish  him  from  all  other  pupils  of  the  master. 
His  qualities  and  mannerisms  constitute  a  well  defined 
artistic  personality  and  the  "Madonna"  in  question  is 

87 


so  decidedly  within  his  canon,  that  she  is  beyond  dis- 
pute his,  and  no  other's.  In  the  well  known  work  of 
1482,  the  "Madonna  enthroned  with  Jerome  and  an- 
other Saint  at  her  feet"  (Siena  Academy  367),  Cozza- 
relli's  earliest  dated  painting,  the  hands  have  the  identi- 
cal character  of  those  in  Mr.  Walters'  picture.  The 
same  is  true  of  his  altarpiece  of  i486,  in  S.  Barnardino 
at  Sinalunga,  a  work  which  also  offers  us  in  the  weak 
open  mouth  of  the  Madonna  a  parallel  to  that  of  the 
angel  on  the  right  in  ours.  The  pouting,  cruel  Child 
is  matched  in  another  altarpiece  at  Paganico  distress- 
ingly ruined,  but  so  important  for  the  study  of  Cozza- 
relli  that  I  reproduce  it  here  (Figure  50).^  The  Vir- 
gin's face  in  our  picture  tends  already  to  the  fuller  oval 
of  frequent  occurrence  in  his  paintings,  as,  for  instance, 
the  angel's  on  the  right  in  the  last  named  work,  or  in 
the  two  "Madonnas"  at  Milan  reproduced  in  the  Ras- 
segna  d'Arte  for  May,  1916.  But  the  most  clenching 
proof  is  furnished  by  the  "Baptism"  at  Sinalunga 
(Figure  51),  where  the  three  angels  show  resemblances 
of  type,  expression,  hands,  folds,  hair,  etc.,  etc.,  so  close 
that  it  would  be  tedious  to  enumerate  them.  Indeed, 
identities  of  such  a  nature  could  only  occur  in  designs 
produced  at  the  same  moment.  That  moment,  by  the 
way,  could  not  have  been  at  any  great  remove  from 
1480,  as  may  be  inferred  from  the  date  of  Matteo's 
works  which  inspired  these  of  Cozzarelli. 

3  The  types  of  the  angels  and  the  unusual  gaiety  of  the  colouring  must 
have  been  the  cause  of  my  ascribing  this  painting,  when  I  first  saw  it  some 
ten  years  ago,  to  Andrea  di  Nicolo.  It  is  true  that  nowhere  else  do  the 
fellow-pupils  come  so  near  each  other,  but  I  soon  saw  my  error.  Meanwhile 
Mr.  Perkins  recognized  that  it  was  by  Cozzarelli. 

88 


c"    e    e     « 


Fig.  50.     CozzARELLi :  Madonna  and  Saints 

Paganico  (Grosseto) 


•  ••*••     »•  »• 


Fig.  51.     CozzARELLi:  The  Baptism 

5.    Bernardino     Sinalitnga 


"     "      '     *  n?    C 


>   )         J  )       5 


Fig.  52.    CozzARELLi:  Madonna  and  Angels 

Collection   of   the   late   George   A.   Hearn.   New    York,    U..  S.   A. 


Fig.  54.     CozzAKELLi :  The  Nativity 
At  Paris  dealer's  in  ii>io 


Yet  another  "Madonna"  by  Cozzarelli  which  has 
hitherto  passed  for  Matteo's  is  the  one  which  I  saw 
several  years  ago  at  the  late  Mr.  George  A.  Hearn's  in 
New  York  (Figure  52).  I  suspect  that  before  it  was 
sugared  down  by  restoration,  it  had  more  resemblance 
to  the  Walters  "Madonna"  than  it  shows  at  present,  for 
it  must  have  been  painted  but  little  later  and  been  sug- 
gested by  an  original  of  Matteo's  dating  from  the  same 
years,  some  such  a  one  as  the  latter's  work  in  the  parish 
of  the  Contrada  della  Selva  (Figure  53). 

The  loss  of  distinction  incurred  by  Cozzarelli  is  too 
manifest  for  comment.  It  is,  however,  not  superfluous 
to  point  to  the  drier,  more  wooden  effect  of  the  whole, 
due  mainly  to  stiffer  line,  and  less  supple  drawing. 
But  most  noticeable  of  all  is  the  far  less  enveloped  and 
therefore  much  harder  modelling.  It  is  instructive  to 
observe  how  easy  it  is  to  realize  the  nude  form  under 
the  draperies  of  the  one  and  how  impossible  under  those 
of  the  other.  That  we  are  in  the  presence  of  a  design 
by  Cozzarelli  is  vouched  for  by  the  type  and  expression, 
as  well  as  by  the  weedy  hair  of  the  angels. 

My  colleagues  will  not  resent  it,  if  I  take  this  oc- 
casion to  introduce  to  them  a  panel  by  Cozzarelli  which 
I  saw  at  a  Paris  dealer's  in  19 10,  but  have  not  seen 
again  (Figure  54). 

It  is  a  "Nativity,"  of  the  strangest  colour,  very  vivid 
ashen  green,  with  striking  blues,  all  as  if  seen  under 
lime-light.  The  incident  is  quaintly  presented,  with 
its  shepherds,  so  eager  to  adore,  yet  never  glancing  at 
the  Infant  they  have  come  to  worship,  its  didactic  Jos- 

89 


eph,  its  toppling  architecture,  and  its  romantic — I  may 
add  consciously  romantic — landscape.  The  naivete  of 
the  whole  is  so  refreshing,  the  world  evoked  so  young, 
that  I,  for  one,  cannot  help  preferring  it  greatly  to  most 
Florentine  or  Umbrian  parallels  of  much  more  strictly 
artistic  qualities  as,  for  instance,  Sellajo's  or  Pintoric- 
chio's.  At  the  same  time,  this  ^^Nativity"  has  the  in- 
terest of  an  epitome.  It  reveals  Cozzarelli  so  compre- 
hensively that,  by  itself,  it  would  suffice  to  teach  us  to 
know  him  in  every  phase.  Acquaintance  with  it  will 
help  us  to  assign  to  him  some  cass on e-ironts  which,  in 
so  far  as  they  were  known  at  all,  have  hitherto  been  as- 
cribed to  Matteo.^ 

Ill 

Before  speaking  of  the  cassone-trontSj  I  wish  to 
mention  the  part  of  a  predella  in  the  Vatican  Gal- 
lery representing  St.  Barbara  addressing  the  builders 
of  the  tower  in  which  she  is  to  be  imprisoned  (Figure 
55).  I  suspect  that  it  may  originally  have  served  as  a 
portion  of  the  base  for  Matteo's  "St.  Barbara''  altar- 
piece  at  S.  Domenico,  dating  from  1479.  In  that  case, 
it  would  be  one  of  Cozzarelli's  earliest  efforts,  painted 
while  still  with  his  master;  for  that  it  is  by  Cozzarelli 
is  attested  by  the  uncertainty  of  the  line  everywhere. 
Vagueness  naturally  manifests  itself  most  clearly  where 
the  eye  seizes  it  most  readily,  in  the  architecture.     This 

*Most  of  the  works  that  follow  have  already  been  ascribed  in  the  two 
editions  of  my  "Central  Italian  Painters"  first  to  Matteo  and  then  with  a 
certain  confusion  to  Guidoccio.  Doubtless  they  are  all  treated  by  Dr. 
Schubring,  but  this  scholar's  work  is  up  to  now  unknown  to  me,  as,  since 
the  beginning  of  the  war,  I  have  had  no  access  to  German  publications  1 1 1 

90 


3-1 


has  none  of  the  almost  Mantegnesque  precision  which 
belongs  to  Matteo's  buildings,  but  is  as  feeble  as  we 
found  it  in  the  "Nativity."  We  note  the  same  tendency 
to  a  toppling  structure  with  perspective  absurdly  bad. 

To  turn  now  to  the  cassone-ironts,  the  one  that  comes 
nearest  to  Matteo  himself  is  a  panel  in  the  J.  G.  John- 
son collection  at  Philadelphia,  which  represents  Ca- 
milla and  her  companions  in  battle  with  lEne^iS  (Fig- 
ure 56) .  The  composition  is  so  linked  and  articulated, 
the  action  so  spirited,  the  expression  so  well  conceived, 
that  it  does  seem  as  if  Matteo  must  have  invented  the 
design  and  left  the  execution  only  to  the  assistant.  One 
can  even  point  to  the  moment  when  the  master  con- 
ceived it.  It  must  have  been  just  before  he  achieved 
that  most  remarkable  of  his  successes,  and,  from  a  cer- 
tain point  of  view,  the  most  remarkable  design  of  the 
whole  Sienese  Quattrocento,  his  "Massacre  of  the  In- 
nocents'' of  1 48 1,  on  the  pavement  of  the  Siena  Cathe- 
dral. But  the  execution  leaves  much  to  be  desired.  It 
is  vague,  uncertain,  tremulous,  and,  in  so  far  as  the  dif- 
ference of  subject  admits  of  resemblance,  bit  by  bit,  like 
Cozzarelli's  "Madonna  with  Saints"  in  the  Palmieri- 
Nuti  Palace  (Photo.  Alinari  18924,  reproduced  in  Les 
Arts,  October,  1904).^ 

In  the  Metropolitan  Museum  panel,  on  the  other 
hand,  I  find  no  convincing  trace  of  the  master's  genius. 
In  this  work  representing  Roman  heroines  swimming 

*The  present  whereabouts  of  the  companion  piece  of  identical  style  and 
quality,  like  this  formerly  in  the  collection  of  the  late  Mr.  Charles  Butler 
of  London,  is  unknown  to  me.  It  represents  Metabus  fleeing  from  Priver- 
num  and  throwing  his  child  Camilla  across  the  river  Amasenus  (Photo,  New 
Gallery,  1893-4.  No.  148). 

91 


the  Tiber  (Figure  57),  Cozzarelli  seems  to  have  been 
left  to  his  own  devices.  The  facial  types  reveal  the  ap- 
prentice as  do  the  awkward  movements,  the  feeble  line, 
and  the  rather  freakish  architecture.  This,  which,  by 
the  way,  should  be  compared  in  detail  with  a  minia- 
ture in  one  of  the  Sienese  choir  books,  representing  a 
procession  going  into  a  church  (Photo.  Lombardi,  Si- 
ena 127)  betrays  the  direct  or  indirect  influence  of  Gi- 
rolamo  da  Cremona,  as  does  even  more  markedly  the 
woman  in  profile  looking  back  as  she  steps  under  the 
gate.  Another  point  to  be  noted  is  that  Cozzarelli  so 
late  as  1480  or  thereabouts,  and  living  so  near  to  Rome 
as  Siena,  knew  of  Castel  S.  Angelo,  which  he  means  to 
depict  in  the  middle  distance,  by  verbal  description 
only.  He  evidently  had  never  seen  even  a  drawing 
of  it. 

Two  other  cassone-ironts  of  interest  to  us  are  exhib- 
ited at  the  Cluny  Museum  in  Paris  ( Figure  58 ) .  They 
recount  the  return  of  Ulysses.  Although  they  are  still 
very  close  to  Matteo,  I  venture  to  believe  that  no  stu- 
dent of  Sienese  art  would  nowadays  ascribe  them  to 
him,  for  to  such  a  student  they  are  clearly  stamped  with 
the  pupiPs  mannerisms,  faults  and  characteristics. 
They  are  delightful  nevertheless,  for  they  are  unaf- 
fected, pretty  and  amusing.  Here  again  the  influence 
of  Girolamo  da  Cremona  is  manifest.  I  see  it  in  the 
Roman  character  of  the  architecture  with  its  triumphal 
arches,  amphitheatre  and  elaborately  coffered  vault- 
ings, crowded  together  in  a  fashion  common  enough  in 
Girolamo  da  Cremona  and  his  Northern  contempo- 
raries, but  quite  unusual  in  the  paintings  of  Central 

92 


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■  ,\HT?\LO/\\EO-DlGia\ANN!l  PhC\  f  \ 
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Fig.  59. 


CozzARELLi :  Miracle  of  the  Madonna 

Archives,   Siena 


Italy.  I  fancy,  too,  that  such  attitudes  of  looking  back 
as  we  see  in  the  horseman  entering  the  gate,  and  in  the 
boatman,  are  derived  from  the  same  source.  The  stu- 
dent before  leaving  these  designs,  is  invited  to  make 
himself  familiar  with  the  shapes,  forms  and  quality  of 
their  architecture,  for  this  effort  may  remove  from  his 
mind  any  lingering  doubts  regarding  the  attribution  of 
works  already  discussed. 

One  other  cassone-front  and  I  shall  have  done;  but 
first  I  wish  to  draw  attention  to  a  Biccherna  tablet  in 
the  Sienese  Archives  which  does  not  seem  hitherto  to 
have  been  ascribed  to  Cozzarelli  (Figure  59).  It  rep- 
resents the  Blessed  Virgin,  a  stately  figure,  guiding  a 
ship,  in  a  stormy  sea,  toward  land.  It  is  a  pretty  and 
even  poetical  little  picture,  with  its  cloudlets,  its  dis- 
tances, its  cranes,  and  its  Gothic — I  was  about  to  say 
Neo-Gothic — pile  of  buildings. 

This  is  dated  1487,  and  here,  too,  we  still  remain 
close  to  Matteo.  In  the  work  I  shall  now  mention,  the 
last,  Cozzarelli  is  seen  at  his  farthest  remove  from  his 
master,  and  "left  to  himself"  in  the  mystical  Quaker 
sense.     Probably  he  painted  it  years  later. 

I  saw  it  in  1912  at  the  Messrs.  Trotti's  of  Paris.  It 
represents  the  "Story  of  Lucretia"  (Figure  60) .  I  shall 
not  waste  time  proving  the  self-evident,  namely,  that 
Cozzarelli  alone  could  have  been  responsible  for  this 
design.  Nor  do  I  feel  called  upon  to  play  the  too  easy 
game  of  pointing  out  its  many  faults  and  absurdities. 
This,  however,  I  will  say:  that  the  crudity  of  the  inter- 
pretation, the  vulgarity  of  the  action  and  the  dryness  of 
execution  anticipate  the  later  performances  of  Giro- 

93 


lamo  di  Benvenuto,  although  Cozzarelli  happily  re- 
mains to  the  last  too  much  of  a  Quattrocentist  to  sink 
quite  so  low  as  his  younger  rival. 

There  has  been  no  intention  in  this  article  to  exhaust 
the  subject.  Other  interesting  and  typical  works  by 
this  quite  secondary  yet  fresh  and  homely  Sienese  are 
known.  But  as  I  have  no  photographs  of  them  I  leave 
it  to  others  to  publish  them.  Besides  it  is  never  my 
purpose  to  exhaust  a  field,  in  the  sense  of  leaving  no 
work  by  a  master  I  am  studying  unmentioned.  It  suf- 
fices to  exhibit  him  in  his  various  phases,  and  that  I  be- 
lieve I  have,  with  regard  to  Cozzarelli,  accomplished 
here.  And  if  I  have  succeeded  in  this  task,  I  shall  also 
have  relieved  Matteo's  fame  of  a  series  of  works  not 
worthy  of  him,  and  tending  to  confuse  and  weaken  the 
outlines  of  his  remarkable  artistic  personality. 


94 


GENERAL  INDEX 


GENERAL  INDEX 


PAGE 

Benvenuto,  Girolamo  di,  93-94 

BlANCHI 

resemblance  with  Matteo 

di  Giovanni        67  note 
BoccATis  OF  Camerino  61 

Ajaccio  (Corsica)  Ma- 
donna 72 

Boston  Museum  of  Fine 

Arts  vi 

Camerino,    S.    Maria    di 

Seppio,  altarpiece       72 

Florence,  Berenson  collec- 
tion, Sposalizio     73,  74 

Quality  as  an  artist  72 

resemblances  with  Erri, 
Angelo  and  Barto- 
lomeo  degli  71 

Sirin,    Prof.    Oswald,   on 

Boccatis  57 

Vienna,  Madonna  former- 
ly at  73 
Botticelli  53 

Florence,    Ognissanti     fres- 
coes 67 
Brunellesco  60 

Castagno,    influence    on    the 
Early   Ferrarese 
and  on  Matteo  di 
Giovanni  68 

Cavalcaselle  63 


PAGE 

Chronology,  v,  5,  6,  8-13, 
18,  21-24,  27-30, 
32,  33,  34,  48-51, 

55,  88,  91,  93 
Cola  Petruccioli,       vii,  43-51 
Bettona,    S.    Maria,    As- 
sumption 46,  49 
Florence,  Loeser,  Mr.  C. 
collection,  triptych, 
Madonna        45,  49,  50 
influenced  by  Bartolo  di 

Fredi         44,  47,  49,  50 
by  Barna  49 

byFei  44,45,47^50 

by  Nuzzi,  Alegretto      48 
by  Vanni,  Andrea 

44,  46,  49,  50 
by  Vanni,  Lippo  49 

New  York,  Metropolitan 
Museum,  triptych. 
Madonna  and 
Saints  44,  49,  50 

Orvieto,       Oratory,       S. 

Giovenale  47, 49 

Spello,  Library,  diptych, 
Crucifixion  and 
Coronation  of  the 
Virgin  47,  49,  50 

Vienna,  Liechtenstein 

Gallery,     triptych. 
Madonna  45,  50 


97 


PAGE 
COSSA 

Boloffna,  works  66 

Milan  J  Brera,  Baptist  79 

Rome,  Vatican,  works  66 

predella  78, 79 

Follov;er  of  Cossa 
Boston  Museum  of  Fine 
Arts,        Marriage 
Salver  vi,  57-80 

Newport,  R.  I.,  Davis 

Collection  79 

New     York,     Lehman 

Collection  66 

COZZARELLI,   GUIDOCCIO 

confused   with    Matteo 

di  Giovanni  65,  66 

Cozzarelli,  Gui- 
doccio  and  Matteo 
di  Giovanni  81-94 

influenced  by  Girolamo 

da  Cremona  92 

resemblances    to   Early 

Ferrarese  86 

Baltimore,  Walters  Col- 
lection, Madonna 

85,  86,  89 
London,  formerly  Butler 
Collection,    Meta- 
bus    and    Camilla 

note  91 
Milan,  Brera,  Madonna       88 
Don  Guido  Cagnola         88 
New  York,  Metropolitan 
Museum,        panel 
picture  9Ij92 

Hearn,  late  Mr.  George 
A.,  Collection, 
Madonna  89 

Paganico  (between  Siena 
and  Grosseto)  par- 
ish church  altar- 
piece  88  and  note 


98 


PAGE 

Cozzarelli,    Guidoccio — con- 
tinned 
Paris,  Musee  Cluny 

Two  Cassone  fronts  92 

Lucretia,  formerly  Paris    93 
Nativity,  formerly  Paris 

89,  90 
Philadelphia,  Johnson,  J. 
't..  Collection,  Ca- 
milla 91 
Rome,  Vatican  Gallery,  S. 
Barbara 

63  &  64  note,  90 
Siena  Academy,  altarpiece 

of  1482  88 

Archives,    Virgin    and 

Ship  93 

Cathedral  Library,  Pro- 
cession 92 
Palmieri-Nuti,     Palace, 
Madonna          and 
Saints  91 
Sinalunga,   S.   Bernadino, 

Baptism  88 

Cremona,  Girolamo  da,  see 
Girolamo 

Daddi,  Bernado 
Dijon^     Maciet     bequest, 

Nativity  7 

influence  on  Vanni,  Lip- 

po  42 

DOMENICO  DI   BaRTOLO 

Siena,  Town  Hall,  Coro- 
nation of  the  Vir- 
gin 37 
DoNATELLO,  influence  on  the 
Early        Ferrarese 
and  on  Matteo  di 
Giovanni  68 
Duccio                                  4,  10 
Berlin,  Nativity                    5,  7 


PAGE 
Duccio — continued 

influence     on     Ugolino 
Lorenzetti 

i6,  i8,  22,  25,  26 
School  of  12 

Segna,       follower      of 

Duccio  9 

Siena,    Cathedral   Mu- 
seum, Maesta       12, 20 


Early  School  of  Ferrara 
resemblance  with  Matteo 

di  Giovanni  62-71 

resemblances  to  Cozzarelli     86 
Ercole  Roberti 

Milan,  Brera,  altarpiece       66 
Erri,  Angelo   and   Bartolo- 
meo  degli 
resemblances  with  Boccatis    71 


Fei,  Paolo  di  Giovanni        41 
influence  on  Cola  Petruc- 

cioli  44,  45,  47,  50 

influenced   by   Bartolo  di 

Fredi  50 

influenced  by  Vanni,  An- 
drea 50 
Siena,  S.  Domenico,  Ma- 
donna                   45,  50 
Frames,      12,  21  note,  22,  26,  45 
Francesco  di  Giorgio      13,  63 
Similarity  to  Girolamo  da 

Cremona  55 

Francesco  di  Gentile 

Fabriano  75 

Fredi,  di  Bartolo  ;  see  Bar- 
tolo 


Gaddi,  Taddeo  41 

Florence,  S.  Croce,  Baron- 


PAGE 

Gaddi,  Taddeo — continued 
celli   Chapel,    Na- 
tivity 7 
Gargarine,  Prince  A. 
Ugolino    Lorenzetti,    pic- 
ture possibly  by  25  note 
Ghirlandaio 

Florence,   Ognissanti,   St. 

Jerome  67 

Giotto  7 

Giovanni  Pisano 

pose  of  Madonna  19 

influence  on  the  Loren- 
zetti 19 
Girolamo  da  Cremona  52-56 
Berlin    Gallery,    Healing 
of  the  Cripple 

52,  54,  68  note 
Havre,  Rape  of  Helen 

vii,  52-56 
influence     on     Sienese 
Art  and  on  Matteo 
di  Giovanni 

68  &  note,  69,  79 
Siena,  Cathedral  Library, 

Miniatures  54, 55 

Similarity   to   Frances- 
co di  Giorgio  55 
similarity  to  Neroccio        55 
Viterbo  Cathedral,  Christ 
in    the    midst    of 
Saints              52,  53,  54 
New   Haven,   U.    S.    A., 
Jarves    Collection, 
Nativity                      52 
Reigate,      Lady      Henry 
Somerset's   Collec- 
tion 
Poppaea  giving  alms  to 

S.   Peter  52,  55 

Girolamo  di  Giovanni         75 


99 


PAGE 

Leonardo  da  Vinci 

Milanese  Art  19 

LiMBURGS,  the  72 

LiPPO  Memmi,  see  Memmi 
Lippo  Vanni,  see  Vanni 
LoRENZETTi,  the,      7,  9,  30,  31 
influence  on  Bama,  33 

influence  on  Ugolino  Lo- 
renzetti      5,  6,  i8, 

22,  23,  24,  32,  34 
possible  influence  on  Ugo- 
lino da  Siena  i8 
influence  on  Vanni,  Lippo 

34.  41 
influenced  by  Giovanni  Pi- 

sano  19 

LORENZETTI,    AmBROGIO, 

6,  7  note,  11,  14,42 
Florence  Academy,  Nico- 
las of  Bari  9 
Roccalhegna,  Madonna         23 
Siena  Academy,    Madon- 
na                          19,  23 

LoRENZETTI,    PlETRO 

Arezzo,  Pieve  polyptych 

6,  10,  II 
Assisi,  Lower  Church, 

11,12,13 
Resurrection  14 

Triptych  13 

Passion  lO 

Cortona,  Madonna  12,  13 

Castiglione  d'Orcia,  Ma- 
donna 12 
Florence      Academy,      S. 

Umilta,  altarpiece        9 
Uffizi,  Madonna  14 

Nicolo  di  Ser  Sozzo,  fol- 
lower of  Lorenzetti    14 
S,  Angelo  in  Colle,  Ma- 
donna 12 


PAGE 

Lorenzetti,  Pietro — continued 
S.  Ansano  a  Dofano,  altar- 
piece  20  &  note 
Siena  Academy,  Madonna 

14,27 
Cathedral  Museum,  Birth  of 
the  Virgin  3,  9,  lO 

S.  Francesco,  frescoes 

31  note 
Pietro  Ovile,  Madonna 

13,27 
Lorenzo  Monaco  4,  5 

Luc  A  DI  Tome  35 

Siena,    Seminary    Chapel, 

polyptych  38 


Mantegna  60, 61 

Martini,  see  Simone 
Matteo  di  Giovanni        vi,  vii 
ascription  of  Marriage 

Salver  to  57,  59,  61-70 
confused    with    Cozza- 

relli,  Guidoccio    65,  66 
Cozzarelli  and  Matteo 

di  Giovanni  81-94 

Florence,  Ufiizi,  Madonna 
confused  with  Boc- 
catis  64  note 

Four  versions  of  the  Mas- 
sacre of  the  Inno- 
cents 66 
influenced  by  Castagno      68 
by  Donatello  68 
by  Uccello  and  Piero 

della  Francesca  68 

by  Girolamo  da  Cre- 
mona 68  note,  69 
by  Pollajuolo  68 
London,    National    Gal- 
lery, Assumption       67 


100 


PAGE 

Matteo  di  Giovanni — cont'd 
Percena      (near     Siena), 
Parish        Church, 
Madonna  86 

resemblance  with  the 
Early  School  of 
Ferrara  62-71 

resemblance  with   Sca- 

letti  67  note 

Siena,     Cathedral     Pave- 
ment, Massacre  of 
the  Innocents       68,  91 
Contrada    della    Selva, 

Madonna  89 

Madonna,  della  Neve, 

altarpiece  67 

S.  Domenico,  altarpiece 

note  64,  67,  90 
Matteo  da  Viterbo, 

influence  on  Vanni,  Lippo     39 
Memmi,  Lippo  14,31 

resemblance  to  Lippo 

Vanni  35, 37 

Rome,    Imbert   formerly, 

Madonna  38 

Milanese  Art 

Leonardo  da  Vinci  19 

MiNO,  Jacopo  di  35 

Monaco,  Lorenzo  4,  5 

MORELLI 

Bergamo,  School  of  Fer- 
rara, Evangelist  70 


Nanni  di  Jacopo  51 

Neroccio  13,  63,  87 

Similarity  to  Girolamo  da 

Cremona  55 

Florence,  Uffizi,  predella, 
influenced  by  Giro- 
lamo da  Cremona 

68  note 


page 
NicoLo  DI  Ser  Sozzo 

follower  of  Lorenzetti  14 

Nuzzi,  Alegretto 

influence  on  Cola  Petruc- 

cioli  48 


Ortolano 
Pieta 


vui 


Pacchiarotto  87 

Perspective  60,61,73 

Perugino  60 

Pesellino  53 

Petruccioli,  see  Cola 
PiETRO  DI  Domenico  87 

PlERO   DELLA   FrANCESCA  6o 

influence  on  the  early  Fer- 
rarese  and  on  Mat- 
teo di  Giovanni         68 

PiNTORRICCHIO  63,  90 

POLLAJUOLO  61 

influence  on  the  Early 
Ferrarese  and  on 
Matteo  di  Giovan- 
ni 68 

Sano  di  Pietro 
Siena,  Town  hall.  Corona- 
tion of  the  Virgin     37 

SCALETTI 

Faenza,  altarpiece  67  note 

resemblance  with  Matteo 

di  Giovanni        67  note 
Segna  di  Bonaventura 

Massa  Marittima  9 

Siena  Seminary,  school  of 
Segna  di  Bonaven- 
tura 22 
Sienese  Art,  influenced  by 
Girolamo  da  Cre- 
mona   68  note,  69, 

79,92 


lOI 


PAGE 

SiENESE  Art — continued 
Study  of  Sienese  Art  still 

incomplete  6, 8 

Sienese    Painting   of   the 
Quattrocento 
appreciation  of     62-65,  81-84 

Sella JO,  Jacopo  90 

SiMONE  Martini  4,  14,  31 

architecture  in  9 

Assist  21 

influence  on  Barna  33 

influence  on  Vanni,  Lippo     34 
Liverpool,  Virgin  1 1 

Orvieto,  polyptych  21  note 

Pisa,  polyptych  12,  20,  22 

Siena,  town  hall  20 

Boston,   Gardner   Collec- 
tion, Madonna  22 

SoDOMA,  63 

Taddeo  di  Bartolo 

influenced  by  Ugolino  Lo- 

renzetti  35 

Tome,  see  Luca  di 

TURA 

Berlin,  altarpiece  66,  79 

Ferrara,    Cathedral,    An- 
nunciation 66 
London,     National     Gal- 
lery,   Virgin    An- 
nunciate 80 
Follower  of 

Newport,  R.  I.,  Former 
Theo.  M.  Davis 
Collection,  A  Bish- 
op 79 
New  York,  Lehman 
Collection,  Por- 
traits 66 
Tuscan  Art 

Giovanni  Pisano,  poses  of 

the  Madonna  19 

102 


PAGE 
Uccello,   influence   on   the 
Early        Ferrarese 
and  on  Matteo  di 
Giovanni  68 

Ugolino  Lorenzetti 
Boston,   Gardner   Collec- 
tion, Madonna 

26-29,  32 
Cambridge  (Mass.),  Fogg 
Museum,  Nativity 
of  Our  Lord  1-36 

Florence,  S.  Croce,  polyp- 
tych,    15-18,    20, 
22-25,  28,  30,  32,  34 
Berenson        Collection, 

Crucifixion  25 

Fogliano,  triptych 

15-25,28,29,30 
influenced  by  Duccio 

16,  18,  22,  25,  26 
by  the  Lorenzetti 

22,  23,  24 
by  Pietro  Lorenzetti 

18,21,26,28,32 
by  Ugolino  da  Siena 

17,  18,21-24,32 
Paris,  Louvre,  Crucifixion 

25,  28,  29,  30 
Philadelphia,  Johnson,  J. 
G.,         Collection, 
panels 

29,  30  k  note,  32,  34 
Pisa,  Museo  Civico,  four 

panels  28-30 

Siena  Academy,  panels  15 

S.  Gimignano 

15-18,  22-24,  26-29 
Ugolino  da  Siena 

influence      on      Ugolino 
Lorenzetti, 

17,  18,21-24,32 


PAGE 

Ugolino  da  Siena — continued 
possibly  influenced  by  the 

Lorenzetti  i8 

S.  Casciano,  Madonna  13  note 
Englewood  (N.  J.),  Piatt 
Collection,       Ma- 
donna 13  note 
New  York,  Lehman  Col- 
lection,    Head    of 
Christ  20 
Philadelphia,  Johnson,  J. 
G.,         Collection, 
Daniel  20 
Ugolino  di  Vieri,  see  Vieri 
Unknown  Early  Sienese 
Painter 
Siena  Academy,  Baptist        31 

Vanni,  Andrea 

Altenburg   Gallery,    Ma- 
donna and  Saints       46 
influenced  by  Barna  33 

influence  on  Cola  Petruc- 

cioli  44,46,49,50 

influence  on  Fei  50 

Vanni,  Lippo 

vii,  32,  34,  37-42 
influenced     by      Bemado 

Daddi  42 


page 
Vanni,  Lippo — continued 

by  Florentine  Art  41 

by  the  Lorenzetti       34,  41 

by  Pietro  Lorenzetti    39,  41 

by  Simone  Martini  34 

Florence,  Bartolini — 

Salembeni  —  Vivai 

Collection,  S.  Paul 

34,  35,  37 
Le  Mans,  Madonna  38 

Perugia  Gallery,  Madonna 
Rome,    Vatican    Gallery,     39 
triptych  38,41 

SS.   Domenico  e  Sisto, 
triptych 

34,  37,  38,  40,  41 

Siena  Seminary,  Baptist       40 

S.  Domenico  37 

S.  Francesco,  Fresco  34 

Town  Hall,  Coronation 

of    the   Virgin  37 

Baltimore,  Walters   Col- 
lection, Madonna 

38,  39,  41 
Vannuccio,  Francesco  50 
Vieri,  Ugolino  di 

Orvieto,  tabernacle    7  note,  10 
Viterbo,  see  Matteo  da 


103 


INDEX  OF  PLACES 


INDEX  OF  PLACES 


Altenburg.     Gallery 

PAGE 

Vanni,  Andrea.     Madonna  and  Saints 

46 

AjACCio  (Corsica) 

Boccatis  of  Camerino,  Madonna 

72 

Arezzo,  Pieve 

Lorenzetti,  P.     Polyptch 

II,  12,  13 

Assisi.     Lower  Church 

Lorenzetti,  P.     Passion  of  Our  Lord 

10 

Triptych 

13 

Resurrection 

14 

Simone  Martini 

21 

Baltimore.     Walters  Collection 

Cozzarelli,  Madonna 

85,  86,  89 

Vanni,  Lippo,  Madonna 

38,  39,  41 

Bergamo.     Morelli  Collection 

School  of  Ferrara.     Evangelist 

70 

Berlin.     Gallery 

Duccio,  Nativity 

5 

Girolamo  da  Cremona,  Healing  of  the  Cripple 

52,  54,  68  note 

The  Lorenzetti,  follower  of,  Nativity 

7 

Tura,  altarpiece 

66,  79  note 

Be'itona.     S.  Maria 

Cola  Petruccioli.     Assumption 

46,49 

Bologna 

Cossa                                                              ^ 

66 

Boston.     Museum  of  Fine  Arts 

Boccatis  of  Camerino 

vi 

Cossa,  follower  of 

vi 

Cossa,  School  of.     Marriage  Salver 

57-80 

Ferrara,  School  of.     Marriage  Salver 

57-80 

Boston.     Gardner  Collection 

Simone  Martini.     Madonna 

22 

Ugolino  Lorenzetti.     Madonna 

26-29,  32 

Tura,  follower 

vi 

107 


PAGE 

Cambridge  (Mass.)     Fogg  Museum 

Ugolino  Lorenzetti.     Nativity  of  Our  Lord  1-36 

Camerino.     S.  Maria  di  Seppio  (near  to) 

Boccatis,  altarpiece  72 

Castiglione  d'Orcia 

Lorenzetti,  P.     Ducciesque  Madonna  12 

Cologne,  painters  of  72 

Cortona 

Lorenzetti,  P.     Madonna  enthroned  with  Angels  12,  13 

Dijon.     Maciet  bequest 

Daddi,  Bernado.     Nativity  7 

Dublin 

School  of  Ferrara.     Lute  Player  70 

Englewood  (N.  J.).     Piatt  Collection 

Ugolino  da  Siena.     Madonna  13  note 

Fabriano 

Francesco  di  Gentile  75 

Faenza 

Scaletti,  altarpiece  67  note 

Ferrara.     Cathedral 

Tura.     Annunciation  66 

Ferrara,  Schifanoia 

Cossa  and  followers  78,  79 

Florence.    Academy 

Lorenzetti,  A.     Nicolas  of  Ban  9 

Lorenzetti,  P.     Umilta  altarpiece  9 

Florence.    Uffizi 

Lorenzetti,  P.     Madonna  14 

Neroccio,  predella,  influenced  by  Girolamo  da  Cremona  68  note 

Matteo  di  Giovanni.     Madonna,  confused  with  Boccatis  64  note 
Florence.     Ognissanti 

Ghirlandaio.     St.  Jerome  67 

Botticelli 
Florence.     S.  Croce,  Baroncelli  Chapel 

Gaddi,  Taddeo.     Nativity  7 

Florence.     S.  Croce,  Refectory 

Ugolino  Lorenzetti,  polyptych  15-18,  20,  22-25,  28,  30,  32,  34 
Florence.     Bartolini — Salembeni-Vivai  Collection 

Vanni,  Lippo.     St.  Paul  34»  35.  37 

108 


PAGE 

Florence.     Berenson  Collection 

Ugolino  Lorenzetti.     Crucifixion  25 

Boccatis,  Sposalizio  73,  74 

Florence.     Loeser,  Mr.  C,  Collection 

Cola  Petruccioli,  triptych  45-49,  50 

FOGLIANO 

Ugolino  Lorenzetti.     Madonna  15-25,  28-30 

Grosseto 

Lorenzetti,  P.     Madonna  23, 27 

Havre 

Girolamo  da  Cremona.     Rape  of  Helen  vii,  52-56 

Le  Mans 

Vanni,  Lippo.     Madonna  38 

Liverpool 

Simone  Martini,  Virgin  11 

London.     National  Gallery 

Matteo  di  Giovanni.     Assumption  67 

Tura.     Altarpiece  66 

Tura.     Virgin  Annunciate  80 

Formerly  Butler  Collection 

Cozzarelli,  Metabus  and  Camilla  91  note 

Mantua 

S.  Andrea,  Alberti,  Leo  Battista,  influence  on  the  author  of 

the  Boston  Marriage  Salver  76 

Massa  Marittima 

Segna  di  Bonaventuri  9 

Milan.     Brera. 

Cossa.     Baptist  79 

Cozzarelli.     Madonna  88 

Ercole  Roberti.     Altarpiece  66 

Don  Guido  Cagnola 

Cozzarelli.     Madonna  88 

New  Haven  (Conn.).     Jarves  Collection 

Girolamo  da  Cremona.     Nativity  52 

Newport  (R.  L).     Davis  Collection 

Tura  and  Cossa,  follower  of.     Portrait  of  a  Bishop  79 

109 


PAGE 

25  note 

44»  49,  50 
91,92 


New  York.     Historical  Society 

Ugolino  Lorenzetti,  follower  of 
New  York.     Metropolitan  Museum 

Cola  Petruccioli,  triptych,  Madonna  and  Saints 

Cozzarelli,  panel  picture 
New  York.     Hearn,  Mr.  George  A.,  Collection 

Cozzarelli.     Madonna  89 

New  York.     Lehman,  Mr.  Philip,  Collection 

Cossa  and  Tura,  follower  of,  Gozzadini  profiles  66 

Ugolino  da  Siena.     Head  of  Saint  20 

Orvieto.     Oratory 

Cola  Petruccioli.  S.  Giovenale  47-49 

Simone  Martini.  Polyptych  2i  note 

Vieri,  Ugolino  di.     Tabernacle  7  note,  10 

Paganico  (between  Siena  and  Grosseto).     Parish  Church 

Cozzarelli.     Altarpiece  88  &  note 

Paris.     Louvre 

Ugolino  Lorenzetti.     Crucifixion  25,  28,  29,  30 

Paris.     Musee  Cluny 

Cozzarelli.     Two  Cassone  fronts  92 

Formerly  in  Paris 

Cozzarelli.     Nativity  89, 90 

Cozzarelli.     Lucretia  93 

Percena  (near  Siena).     Parish  Church 

Matteo  di  Giovanni.     Madonna  86 

Perugia.     Gallery 

Firenzo  and  school  78  note 

Vanni,  Lippo.     Madonna  39,  40,  4^ 

Philadelphia.     Johnson,  J.  G.,  Collection 

Cozzarelli.     Camilla  91 

Ugoh'no  Lorenzetti.     Panels 

Ugolino  da  Siena.     Daniel 
Pisa 

Simone  Martini.     Polyptych 
Pisa.     Museo  Cureo 

Ugolino  Lorenzetti,  possibly.     Four  panels 


29,  30  &  note,  32,  34 
20 

12,  20,  22 

28,  29,  30 


Reigate,  the  Priory,  Lady  Henry  Somerset's  Collection 

Girolamo  da  Cremona.     Poppae  giving  Alms  to  St.  Peter  52,  55 
Rimini  7^ 

no 


PAGE 
ROCCALBEGNA 

Lorenzetti,  A.     Madonna  23 

Rome.     SS.  Domenico  e  Sisto 

Vanni,  Lippo.     Dead  Christ  and  St.  Aurea  34,  37,  38,  40,  41 

Rome.     Vatican  Gallery 

Cossa,  works  of                          ,  66 

Cossa,  predella  78,  99 

Cozzarelli.     S.   Barbara  note  63  &  64,  90 

Vanni,  Lippo,  triptych  38,  41 


S.  Agostino 

Ugolino  Lorenzetti,  polyptych.  formerly  in 

15 

S.  Angelo  in  Colle 

Lorenzetti,  P.     Madonna 

12 

S.  Ansano  a  Dofano 

Lorenzetti,  P.     Altarpiece 

20  &  20  note 

S.  COLOMBA 

the  Lorenzetti,  follower  of.     Nativity 

7 

S.  Casciano 

Ugolino  da  Siena.     Madonna 

13  note,  18 

S.  GiMiGNANO  (formerly  in  S.  Agostino) 

Barna 

32,33 

Ugolino  Lorenzetti                                     1 5-1 8,  22 

,  23,  24,  26-29 

Siena.     Academy 

Cozzarelli.     Altarpiece  of  1482 

88 

Lorenzetti,  A.     Madonna 

19,23 

Lorenzetti,  P.     Madonna 

14,27 

Ugolino  Lorenzetti.     Panels 

15 

Unknown  painter.     Baptist 

31 

Siena.     Archives 

Cozzarelli.     Virgin  and  Ship 

93 

Siena.     Cathedral  Library 

Cozzarelli.     Procession 

92 

Girolamo  da  Cremona.     Miniatures 

54,55 

Siena.     Cathedral  Museum 

Duccio.     Maesta 

12,20 

Lorenzetti,  P.     Birth  of  the  Virgin 

3,9,10 

Siena.     Cathedral  Pavement 

Matteo  di  Giovanni.     Massacre  of  the  Innocents 

68,91 

Siena.     Contrada  della  Selva 

Matteo  di  Giovanni.     Madonna 

89 

III 


PAGE 

Siena.    S.  Domenico 

Vanni,  Lippo  37  note 

Fei.     Madonna  45,  50 

Matteo  di  Giovanni.     Altarplece  64  note,  67,  90 

Siena.     Seminary 

Luca  di  Tome.     Polyptych  38 

School  of  Segna  di  Bonaventura  22 

Vanni,  Lippo.     Baptist  40 

Siena.     S.  Francesco 

Lorenzetti,  P.     Frescoes  31  note 

Vanni,  Lippo.     S.  Francis  34 

Siena.     Madonna  della  Neve 

Matteo  di  Giovanni.     Altarpiece  67 

Siena.     Monistero,  near 

Ugolino  da  Siena.     Madonna  (formerly  at)  13  note 

Siena.     S.  Pietro  Ovile 

Lorenzetti,  P.     Madonna  13, 27 

Siena.     Town  Hall 

Domenico  di  Bartolo.     Coronation  of  the  Virgin  37 

Lorenzetti,  A.     Frescoes  9 

Martini,  Simone  20 

Sano  di  Pietro.     Coronation  of  the  Virgin  37 

Vanni,  Lippo.     Coronation  of  the  Virgin  37 

Siena.     Palmieri-Nuti  Palace 

Cozzarelli.     Madonna  and  Saints  9 1 

SiNALUNGA.     S.  Bernadino 

Cozzarelli.     Baptism  88 

Spello.     Library 

Cola  Petruccioli,  diptych.  Crucifixion  and  Coronation  of  the 

Virgin  47,  49,  5^ 

Vienna 

Boccatis,  Madonna  formerly  at  73 

Vienna.     Liechtenstein  Gallery 

Cola  Petruccioli,  triptych,  Madonna  45,  50 

ViTERBO.     Cathedral 

Girolamo  da  Cremona.     Christ  in  the  midst  of  Saints  52,  53,  54 


112 


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